Returning the Favour
by RaiRoRa
Summary: **This is a sequel to my previous story, 'The Favour'. So please start there! ** John Wick never returned. Anna Quinn spent a year waiting for his promised return - and he never came back. So when a killer turns up in her kitchen with a contact issued in his name, Anna decides to take matters into her own hands and return the favour.
1. Chapter 1

Dan Parsons lay beside Annika and by the light of his bedside lamp, he watched her sleep. In truth, he saw little more than the top of her head because she liked to roll over to the edge of the bed, wrapped in the comforter. He resisted the urge to stroke the tuft of dark hair that stuck out over the top of the blanket, knowing that, at his touch, she would violently wake from sleep, pushing him away as though his touch were an electric shock. The first time he'd done it, they'd frightened each other almost to death. Since then, he'd taken her advice and approached her with caution when she was asleep.

It was one of her little quirks. In actual fact, there were other things he found odd about her but she always laughed them off when he mentioned them. Like her ability to pick a lock, for example. One night they'd been stuck outside his door in pouring rain when he realised he'd probably left his keys at work. He'd already been on the phone, trying to call his sister, his ex-wife, someone with a spare set of keys that was still awake after midnight. But even as he was scrolling through his contacts, she'd extracted a bit of bent wire from her jacket pocket and had poked around at the lock till there was a small click and the door had opened. She'd tried to put the wire back in her pocket without him seeing it, but he'd gently wrestled it out of her small hands and turned it over in his large ones. It had been a big paper clip and, based on the scratches on the metal, it was not the first time it had been used for this purpose.  
"Where did you learn to do that?" he asked, astonished.  
She'd laughed and taken the twisted paper clip back, slipping it into her pocket.  
"My criminal past," she intoned solemnly. "Way back when I was a cat burglar."  
And she'd tugged his sleeve, pulling him inside so she could slip her cold hands under his jacket, stroking and teasing him till that little niggling thought – the snagged nail, the unravelling stitch – was forgotten.

Dan leaned over and opened the drawer of his bedside table and silently extracted the ring box. Making sure she was still asleep, he opened the lid carefully and looked at the ring inside. It was simple, a white gold band with three square-cut diamonds no wider than the band itself. Very plain, very discreet. He hadn't really meant to buy it: he'd been stuck in traffic outside Finch's Jewelry Store and he'd looked over at their engagement ring display. Something inside him moved, like a cog sliding into gear, and he suddenly knew that he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her. He'd parked the car and ran inside before his courage deserted him, spotted the right ring in the first tray and paid for it on the spot. And then he hid the ring box for nearly a month.

He'd spoken to a few people about it, unable to make a decision without wondering whether he was being crazy. Stupid. He'd only known Annika for eleven months, they'd only dated for three of them. But what did they say? If you know, you know, said his sister, delighted to see him happy again for the first time since his divorce. And his ex-wife Amanda said much the same thing: leaning over the garden fence to admire the ring, she called over her new husband for a look. The burden of their well-wishing had lain heavily on his shoulders: his ex-wife would finally be able to be unmitigatedly happy in his presence, not embarrassed by how much more content she was with her new husband, feeling sorry for him for not having found the same.  
"It's not too soon, hon," she said. She'd started calling him _hon_ since they divorced, a kind of pitying term of endearment. "If she's the right girl for you, you'll know. And then what does it matter whether you get married now or next year or in two years? Do it. Be happy!"

Only his friend Mike had reservations.  
"How well do you know her, man?" he'd asked over a beer.  
"I feel like we're ..." Dan searched for the words. He wasn't good with all that mushy crap. "We're like ... soulmates. It's like she's my perfect partner. We like so much of the same stuff, it's unreal."  
Mike shrugged.  
"Don't you think we make a good couple?" Dan asked.  
"Sure you do," Mike said and he drank deep. "It's just that ..."  
He thought about it for a second.  
"It's like you're too perfect, know what I mean? Like she's trying to be who you want her to be all the time but I dunno if that's who she really is. I can't explain it, man, but sometimes I think she's just ..."  
Mike trailed off, unable or unwilling to finish his train of thought.  
 _He thinks she's just faking it,_ Dan thought. And he quickly quashed the thought because if he poked at it too long, he was afraid he might uncover something he didn't want to know. He bought Mike another beer to show there were no hard feelings, brushing against the ring box in his inner pocket as he reached for his wallet.

xxx

Annika – Anna, Eileen, Annie – watched him from beneath the blanket, saw the little red box returned to the drawer and the lamp switched off. She waited till she heard the deep, steady breathing that indicated he was asleep before she rolled over and stretched. She'd known about the little red box for a couple of weeks. Dan wasn't very good at deceit or subterfuge. He was also pretty useless when it came to hiding crap. On one of her pretend trips to the bathroom she'd sneaked into the bedroom, avoiding the floorboards that would creak and let him know downstairs that she was prowling around in his room, and had searched his bureau till she found what she'd feared he'd been hiding. Stomach sinking, she'd realised that the end of her relationship with Dan – nice, placid, uncomplicated Dan – had already been set in motion, as though someone had turned an hourglass upside-down, the sand slipping through the glass rapidly, counting the hours, the minutes, the seconds till she would have to disappear.

It had saddened her more than it should have: she hadn't intended to like him as much as she did. She'd waited for John for nearly a year – a year without any contact, without a phone call, a text or an email. Mr Charon at the Continental reluctantly agreed to call her on the fifteenth of every month. _Three minutes, no more,_ he said at the beginning of each call and then in a whisper updated her with what he knew: the Chinese. The Russians. John had been seen, he had been injured. Some months he had nothing to tell her; once he had barely said hello before he hung up immediately, presumably because Winston had been nearby. She'd hoped he would call back. He hadn't. That had been a long month.

Then, five months ago, Charon called her early one morning – not on the fifteenth, nowhere near the fifteenth, in fact, - and whispered down the phone, "It is done! He is free!"  
"What – ?" Anna managed to say before he hung up.  
She stood beside her bed in her tiny one-bedroom apartment and her heart swelled with elation. She pulled on her jogging shoes and went for a run, her mind pounding out a "Yes! Yes! Yes!" in rhythm with her feet on the pavement. Should she quit her job immediately? She had to give one month's notice, but maybe Muriel would waive that. Or maybe she should wait. Wait till John showed up at her door, called her up, turned up in the book store. Anna couldn't wait, but she had to. John would turn up, she just had to be patient till he sorted his shit out. But she still wanted to swing out of a lamp-post like that corny old scene in _Singin' in the Rain._ Too bad that was one of the few days in Seattle when it wasn't actually raining. _Oh, well,_ she'd thought, _never mind!_

And then she waited. And waited. And waited. When she phoned Charon he was cagey at first – he didn't know anything, he hadn't heard from John - but when she phoned him a month later, he sounded genuinely perplexed. No, he still hadn't heard from him. The third month, Charon used his three minutes to clear his throat discreetly and tell her that he would now cease to call her unless so requested by Mr Wick. John Wick had disappeared again and until he chose to reappear, their conversations were futile.

That was it. Anna/Annika was left in her Seattle limbo, waiting for a man to turn up, one who didn't seem to be in any particular hurry to do so. And the months passed without this changing, causing her initial elation to turn to impatience. Then to disappointment. Then to anger. And when she got to anger, she'd finally given in and gone on a date with Dan Parsons. Just one. Just a coffee. That was all.

He was a carpenter, a friend of her boss, and his patient, old-fashioned wooing as well as her unswerving deflection of his attentions had garnered her far more attention than she had wanted. Her boss, Muriel, and a couple of the other women who worked in the book store had been so enchanted by Dan's steadfast dedication – bringing her the cupcakes she'd mentioned she liked, buying up every cook book in her section, leaving a rose by her cash desk – that they had formed a little cheer-leading group behind him, nagging Anna to go on a date with him till, through a smile that was little more than a baring of clenched teeth, she agreed.

To her surprise, she had enjoyed herself. Dan was a bear of a man, tall and blond, with blunt, calloused hands. He was surprisingly gentle and sappily romantic, something he would never have admitted to. He called himself "just a regular guy," as though this explained everything there was to know about him. He liked a quiet life, he enjoyed watching football, he drank beer with his friends – he had a lot of friends with names like Mike, Dave, Bill, Tom – and most of all he liked to hang out with his very large family which, bizarrely (Anna found), also included his ex-wife and her new husband. He was, quite simply, the most amiable man she'd ever met. Even his ex-wife thought so.  
"Annika, hon, Dave's just the best," she'd told Anna at one of the Parsons' large barbecues and she delivered the pronouncement without a trace of irony. "Seriously, the _best_."  
Anna was inclined to agree. He was a really nice guy.

On reflection, what Anna really fell in love with was his family, the easy dinners with his parents that ended up with a full house, as his brothers and cousins and friends dropped by, delighted to have an excuse for a gathering, a beer, a chat. Dan's mother thought she was darling, so pretty, so smart, and she told her so often. Mrs Parsons had his colouring, the same reddish-blond hair and pink cheeks that flushed with excitement when a story was being recounted and the entire family became caught up in epic arguments about trivial details. Was the guy who sold Dad the Camino in 1979 from Tacoma or Olympia? They took sides with far more enthusiasm than necessary, fighting with spirited shouting and good-natured jibes as though establishing his hometown was somehow pivotal to the anecdote, rather than a side-note. Anna had never known a family like this; actually Ann Finnerty had never really known much of a family at all. And it had sucked her in, it was like a drug – the warmth, the acceptance, the hugs from his mom. She was expected to be a loving girlfriend to the besotted Dan, because in his world everyone was loving and sweet to one another, and before she properly realised what she was doing, she found herself sitting through football games and making fruit pies. Her ability to act - and to Google - had never been put to the test as vigorously as they were in her time with Dan: she learned overnight the rules of football. She watched YouTube videos to learn how to make an apple pie, a peach cobbler. She turned herself into the kind of girlfriend Dan wanted, the kind of girlfriend his family expected: sweet little Annika, a little ray of sunshine. Farewell Anna Quinn, contract killer.

xxx

Dan stirred in his sleep, kicking the comforter off. Solicitously, she pulled it back up. Anna glanced over at her watch on the bedside table. Since she'd left the business, she'd gotten back into the habit of taking her watch off at night. When you were working, you never took your watch off because you mightn't have time to put it back on. Just thinking about it, she reached over and strapped the worn leather around her wrist.

And that's when she heard it, the sound. She sat up in bed, straining her ears. With Dan gently snoring beside her, she slid out of the bed and pressed to the wall so the floorboards wouldn't creak, she slipped out of the room.

There it was again. It was coming from the kitchen. It could be a mouse, she thought. Or a... or a... Another little creak.

 _Shitshitshitshitshit,_ she thought. She didn't have a gun. There was nothing in the hall that she could use as a weapon, except a battered umbrella, which she was afraid to pick up in case its rustling would alert the person in the kitchen to her presence. She crept to the door. It was open a crack, a centimetre or two. Anna pressed her eye against it and saw a figure in the kitchen. Small, probably a woman.

As she watched, the woman turned and she almost shrank back, then she saw that the other woman was illuminated by the light of her phone. She was smiling as she flipped her finger against the screen, scrolling rapidly up. Anna pushed the door open and hit the light switch.  
"Are you fucking serious?" she snapped, her voice a low snarl.  
The other woman scrambled to put her phone on the counter and pull out her gun.  
"Are you fucking serious?" Anna repeated. "What the fuck? Are you Facebooking on a job? Sending fucking text messages? Don't tell me you're supposed to be fucking Agency-trained?"

The woman was young, in her early twenties. As young as I was when I started, Anna thought. It's probably one of her first jobs.  
She was black, a little bit heavy-set, muscular. She looked familiar and it took Anna a couple of minutes to remember who she reminded her of.  
"So - _are_ you Agency-trained? What's your name?" Anna repeated in her best teacher voice: sharp, no-nonsense. It seemed to do the trick, rattling the girl back to her senses.  
"I'm Kenya Washington," she said a touch cheekily. "Not that that matters. And yes, I _am_ Agency-trained," and she swept a hand downwards to indicate her clothing. Black pants, black top, smart black blazer. The unofficial Agency uniform.

"You related to Kesha Washington?" Anna asked through narrowed eyes.  
"Yeah, I am," the woman said. "I'm her niece, Kenya. You trained with her, right?"  
Anna moved slowly into the kitchen, deliberately not going near the knife block by the sink. She watched Kenya's eyes flicker towards the knives and back to her.  
"You should know you never take your phone out on the job," Anna continued in the same stern tone. "Until the job is finished. You never get distracted on the job, you never take your eyes off the target."  
"Yes, ma'am," Kenya answered sarcastically. "Now the lesson is over, it's time for me to finish the job so I can get back to my WhatsApp. That's what people are using nowadays," she added sarcastically. "Facebook is so yesterday, bitch."  
Anna inched along the countertop. Kenya's gun followed her.  
"Where's your silencer?" she asked. "You forgot the silencer, _bitch_."  
Kenya looked at her gun and up at Anna, who didn't pause: "You are so dumb, woman. How did you pass training? What are you going to do? Shoot me? You'll wake everyone in the house. And what will you do then? Shoot them all? Who's going to clean up? You think you can get a reservation for dinner in the Seattle suburbs?"  
Anna watched the young woman mentally flick through her options.  
"I'm gonna shoot you and get out of here," Kenya said sullenly. "So shut your piehole."  
"Yeah," Anna said. "Good luck with that. You're not wearing gloves, you dumbass. Your prints are everywhere."

Anna saw a thin sheen of sweat on Kenya's forehead. Her hands were no longer that steady on the holster. Seriously, she thought, had standards slipped so much since she finished her training?  
"Who sent you?" Anna demanded.  
Kenya sneered, her mouth twisting into a thin smile as she realised the trump card she held.  
"Your boyfrien', that's who. That's right, bitch, I got sent here by no other than John Wick."  
Anna felt a sensation like a blow to her ribcage. Temporarily winded, she looked at the other woman, who sensed she'd once again regained the upper hand. Kenya cocked the gun with more than a trace of arrogance.  
"Liar," Anna hissed.  
"You wanna see the contract?" Kenya said. "I was just goin' to come in and kill you quietly, girl, but you are such a bitch, I think you deserve to die knowing your precious John Wick wants you dead."  
Wordlessly, she picked up her phone and, watching Anna with one eye, scrolled till she found what she wanted and tapped the screen. "Look at that, if you please."  
She slid the phone over the kitchen island.

Anna picked it up and looked at the PDF on the screen. It was a copy of a telefax – the Agency still used fax machines, for crying out loud.  
 _Status: Closed contract,_ she read. _Agent: Washington, Kenya. Subject: Quinn, Anna. Denomination: $150,000.  
I've gone down in value, _Anna thought wryly. _I used to be worth more than a million._  
Aloud she said, "Nothing here that indicates John Wick has anything to do with it."  
Kenya rolled her eyes. "Scroll down, bitch," she said in a tone of weary exasperation.  
Anna scrolled down.  
 _Assigner: Wick, John.  
_ She scrolled to the bottom of the fax, looking for his ID, the number only he could use.  
 _001-01_ – USA, New York, she translated in her head. _333_ – payment in advance. _145_ – closed contract. And then her heart caught as she read the final digits in the list of numbers at the bottom of the page:  
 _130-91_ , his agent number. Hers was 130-97. Five others graduated before her, those five were now all dead.

Anna slowly placed the phone on the island and gave it a little push. The other woman watched her as she leaned on the island, her two hands gripping the sides as though to steady herself, her head bowed. Kenya stretched out a hand to take back her phone.  
"You gonna come outside with me," she said and "I'm gonna – "  
Suddenly Anna looked up, her eyes dark with fury. She thrust a hand under the kitchen island and extracted a heavy metal hammer. Before Kenya could react, Anna whacked the meat tenderizer off her fingers, breaking the screen of her phone and smashing the bones with a sickening crack. Kenya shrieked, dropping her gun to nurse her fingers. Anna snatched it up and aimed it at the other woman.  
"You have about two minutes to get out of here before this kitchen is full of people," she said. "Go, now. And you tell John Fucking Wick that he'd better crawl back into that hole he's been hiding in because Anna Quinn is coming to kick his ass."  
Nursing her fingers, tears streaming down her face, Kenya slipped out the back door, even as Anna heard Dan's heavy footsteps on the stairs.

She shoved the phone and the gun in the bread bin and quickly picked up the heavy metal hammer.  
"Annika!" Dan shouted from the hallway. "You all right?"  
She winced as she prepared to do what she had to do.  
"Fine!" she called brightly. "Just brushed against the meat tenderizer-thingie in the darkness and it fell on my toes."  
She dropped it and swore silently as it bounced off her foot. When Dan opened the door, she was gripping her toes, her face blanched in pain. That it hurt like hell was the only thing she didn't have to lie about that night.


	2. Chapter 2

"Well," Anna hissed down the phone. "Have you found it, Winston?"  
She pressed herself against Dan's winter coat. It smelled of woodsmoke; he'd probably been wearing it when he and his dad had been out burning leaves and clearing deadwood.  
"Is it there?" she said.  
She heard the _click-click-click_ of Winston's keyboard. "Patience, little bird," he murmured.  
"The phone is smashed beyond repair," she said, "and I can't remember the contact number, but it was recent – maybe only a couple of days old - and it was in John's name. She had a PDF of it on her phone and she –"  
"Found it," Winston said dully.  
"And what - ?"  
"Hush a moment, little bird, and let me read it."  
Anna pressed against the coats, biting her lip.  
"It appears to be real," he said slowly. "It is certainly in the database and the status is currently closed. It was phoned in by Wick, the contract was faxed to the Agency from an unknown location and identified against his ID number. A deposit was transferred to the Agency the same day."  
"From his account?"  
"A cash deposit."  
"And who took the call?"  
"An operator called Rosamund, a new girl. She wouldn't recognise his voice – before you ask."  
"So it could have been anyone," Anna concluded.  
"Anyone who knows his number, knows your number and has his handwriting," Winston said. "Because it does look like his signature."  
"But why?" she whispered. "Why would he do this?"

It was the question that she couldn't shake: why would he do it? _And_ , she thought grimly, _on a related note: why do I always fall for men who want to kill me?_  
"Anna, it is beyond me," Winston said and she heard the genuine confusion in his voice. "I have not seen him in months. Charon heard a rumour that he was setting up in Puerto Rico, something I found quite hard to believe, but one never knows. But he hasn't been in contact with me since ... well, since everything finished."  
He coughed discreetly. What had started with the death of a puppy had somehow spiralled out of control, in a way no one could have predicted. Anna didn't know what had happened in her time in exile, she only knew what Charon was willing to divulge in his monthly phone call. And as Charon's loyalty was primarily to Winston and The Continental, what she was allowed to learn was sparse, at the very least.  
"There is one thing," Winston said, "but I fear you may not like it. There were rumours that he... Well, there were rumours about a woman."  
"A woman?" Anna said.  
"Yes, little bird – and before you react with your customary Irish ... eh... vivacity, I would like to remind you that these are just rumours. You asked me why he might take out a contract – if this is, indeed our Jonathan's work – and I feel compelled to mention this possibility."  
"So you think John might have sent an agent after me because he's hooked up with some bitch and he wants me out of the picture?" she said, her voice rising to a screech.  
"Anna," Winston said, "Now, Anna, these are just rumours. Temper your response, my dear."  
"I'll give you _temper_ – " she began and abruptly stopped when someone banged on the door of the closet.  
"Are you in there, Annika?" Dan called.  
"Yes, sweetie, there in a minute," she replied. "Just searching for a hat I left here last time."  
She waited a second or two, holding her phone away from her ear.  
"Who was that, _sweetie_?" Winston asked archly.  
Anna sighed. "My boyfriend," she admitted. "Of sorts. Kind of."  
"Hmmm."  
It was a long and low _hmmmm_ , and it spoke volumes.  
"It's complicated," she said weakly.  
"You want to know why Jonathan may have put out a contract on you?" Winston asked. "Well, little bird, you just might have your answer right there."  
"I think I've found it," Dan said, opening the door. In his hand he held her green woollen hat. "You left it by the boots and stuff."  
"Thanks, babe," she said, giving him her warmest smile. "Just on the phone to my dentist, be out in a second."  
"Your dentist?" Winston said. "Interesting."  
She ignored him. "Why didn't he come after me himself? Why send that newb? It makes no sense."  
"None of this makes sense," Winston said. "But I would recommend that you ask him yourself. And soon. In two days the contract opens to all takers and the premium goes up to a quarter of a million. Not on a par with your previous price tag, to be sure, but enough to be tempting for some."  
She heard him tapping on his keyboard.  
"Thanks, Winston," she said weakly.  
"And one final word of advice," he said, "if you have any ... feelings for your boyfriend, I would recommend that you get out of there fast. It would appear that his address is listed as your location, along with a few other pertinent details. Daniel James Parsons, is that correct? Son of Daniel Senior and Linda, née Rivers, Parsons?"  
Something plunged to the pit of her stomach and a cold sweat broke out on her back.  
"Yes," she whispered.  
"Time to spread your wings, little bird," Winston said sombrely, "and fly far, far away."

xxx

"Why were you hiding in the closet?" Dan said, grinning at her. "Are you having an affair with your dentist, or what?"  
Anna thought rapidly.  
"No," she said, leaning against the kitchen counter she had frantically scrubbed and wiped while Dan had been in the shower. "It was my mom."  
Dan narrowed his eyes. "You said your mom was dead," he said.  
"Yeah, well, I lied," she said shortly. "She has been dead to me for a long time, but technically, she's alive. Or, I should say, she's dying."  
He put down the dishcloth and shook his head slowly, as though it would help him hear better.  
"So, wait now, you told me your mom died of a drug overdose. Now it turns out that she's alive somewhere in ... "  
"... in Boston."  
"... in Boston and now she really _is_ dying?"  
"Look," Anna said, grabbing one of his hands. She turned it over in hers. His hands were big, the skin was rough and reddened, scarred and calloused. John's hands were narrow and smooth, long fingers and clean nails. Dan's nails were chewed to the quick and often dirty; one of his hands could comfortably circle both of hers.  
"Look," she started again. "My mom and I ... we had a really bad relationship. She wasn't much of a mom. When I was 17, I ran away from home and from that point on, I never spoke to her again. When I said she'd overdosed, it was because I really thought she must've overdosed by now. I'm just as surprised as you are that she's still alive."  
Dan's face crumpled in sympathy. She'd told him about her childhood – her real childhood – and it had horrified him, the child of doting parents. He reached out to pull her close but she pulled him gently away.  
"Anyway," she said, "apparently she's dying. Of cancer. And she's in residential care."  
"A hospice?" Dan asked gently.  
"I guess so. She wants me to come back for a few weeks, the last weeks. And I said I would."  
"Of course," he said, trying to wrap his arms around her. Anna wriggled out of his grip and he looked hurt.  
"It's just a lot – " she began, "- a lot to process. I just need a bit of space."  
"Sure, sure," he murmured.  
"I'm going to go home and pack a bag," she said. "I'm going to try to fly out this evening."  
"Of course," he said and then added "I can go with you, Annie. We can go through this together."  
She looked at his face, his open, honest face, and said, "Thank you, Dan, but I'm afraid I have to do this alone."  
He nodded.  
And she hated herself.


	3. Chapter 3

Maria Carmen stood behind the curtain and watched the man below. He was working in the small yard behind his house, the gate thrown open to the street, a canopy providing a little shade in the afternoon sun. He had parts of the motorbike laid out neatly around him and he was kneeling on an old mat on the bare concrete, his hands on his knees, completely still as he surveyed the parts in front of him and thought about his next step. As though he could sense her eyes, he turned his head slightly and glanced up at her house. She shrank behind the cotton drapes until he'd turned his attention back to the bike.

The house beside them had been empty for six months, her mother had been beginning to despair that they'd never find a tenant; San Luis had once been a popular tourist resort but its popularity had declined when a huge hotel opened in the next village. Now it functioned as a commuter town for San Jacinto, which not only had the hotel, but a more attractive beach and a better preserved old town. San Luis' nightlife had become complacent, its bars somewhat dingy, and it no longer had that many tourists passing through. All the more reason it was surprising that the American had thought to stay, and stay so long at that. He'd rented the house from Marie Carmen's mother for a month. Then extended it to two. Now he had passed the three-month mark and didn't seem in any rush to leave. Which suited Marie Carmen just fine. She liked to look at him from her secret vantage point, watch his musician's hands pick up and turn over pieces of metal, turning screwdrivers and wrenches with almost delicate precision. He'd long since finished repairing his own bike; he was now repairing mopeds and motorbikes belonging to other villagers. He never charged anyone, just accepted a bottle of rum or some home-cooked dish with his quaint little half-bow. The gifts disappeared into his house; Marie Carmen had no idea if he ever ate or drank them.

As she watched, he leaned back on his heels and ran his fingers through his long hair. Marie Carmen's mother grumbled under her breath when she saw him – one of those American beach bums. Hairy, dirty man, should get a haircut, should shave. At least he looked better than he did when he arrived, white like death, his narrow face gaunt and wan. Now he had a bit of colour to be sure, he no longer looked like he'd escaped from the morgue.  
 _Mama!_ , Marie Carmen would hiss, never sure how much Spanish the American understood.  
To his face, her mama smiled at his heavily-accented Spanish and took the rent (cash, always in a white envelope as though it were a gift).  
" _Gracias, Senor Black,"_ she'd say. " _Muchas gracias._ "  
And John Black would incline his head in that funny way of his, casting his eyes down to the floor, suddenly awkward or shy.

It drove Marie Carmen wild. He was so not her type: about twenty years older than any Puerto Rican guy she'd dream of dating, but there was something about him that fascinated her. He was quiet, gentlemanly, holding the gate open when she left the house, he always greeted her politely but never asked where she was going, or where she'd been – no small talk, no trivial enquiries. He simply smiled at her, said hello, and turned back to his work. She'd asked him openly, blatantly, why he was in Puerto Rico and he'd told her he was a writer. He was working on a novel. He'd come here for peace and quiet. Yet, he never seemed to do much work: when he wasn't out on his motorbike, exploring the island, he was kneeling on the hard ground of the small yard, patiently repairing her cousin Tito's bike or fixing Lucia's moped. He was on friendly terms with everyone but had no friends. No girlfriend, either. At least, none that he ever mentioned.

One evening when he came back from one of his long rides somewhere along the coast, she'd waylaid him at the wrought iron gate to his yard and brazenly asked him out for a drink. He'd looked at her, his dark eyes narrowing a fraction, then shook his head with a rueful smile.  
"Thanks," he said, "but I'm not very social."  
He'd taken off his helmet and jacket and she smelled his sweat and the unmistakable scent of sea-salt. Had he been swimming?  
"How can you live in Puerto Rico and not want to go out for some dancing? For a little drink?" she'd wheedled, a hand on her hip. She tossed her dark hair and pushed her bosom out cheekily. He'd laughed, shaking his head so his hair fell into his eyes.  
"No, thank you," he repeated. "I think I'm just too old for that kind of thing."  
"You're never too old!" she protested, but he just laughed his deep laugh and pushed the gate open, his arm stretching past her face. She saw the muscles move under his tanned skin and she felt weak.  
"See you, Marie Carmen," he said in his quiet way and went inside, pulling the gate shut behind him.

So when she was supposed to be studying for college, she liked to sit by the window, hidden by the curtain and watch him instead. He was the reason she was failing her accountancy course; her mama would kill her when she got her grades at the end of the semester. She watched him walk barefoot around the small yard, his movements graceful, the soles of his feet black from the dust and motor oil. And she bit her lip when he lifted the hem of his t-shirt to wipe his brow, exposing his stomach for a couple of seconds: he had a scar that ran down between his ribs, a thin line of white against his tan. Instinctively her fingers stroked the cotton drape as though that allowed her to touch his skin, before shrinking back, flustered and guilty. One day he'd absent-mindedly wiped a hand on his shirt, smearing it with oil. She saw him frown briefly in annoyance, then pulled the t-shirt off, turning it inside out to mop his face. Marie Carmen gripped the flimsy material of the curtain as he slowly turned around, looking for somewhere to toss it. She held her breath when she saw his back: he was tattooed across his shoulders. She couldn't quite make out some of the motifs, but she saw a cross, two praying hands and some words she didn't understand. _Fortuna_ something.  
" _Dios mios_ ," she whispered and grabbed a pen to write it down. But he was already striding inside; he returned moments later in a new shirt.

Marie Carmen sneaked into her mama's room and turned on their old PC. The internet connection was slow, she had to wait for the thing to splutter to life before she could type in what she'd written down:  
 _Fortuna fortuna adv  
_ It was automatically corrected to _Fortis Fortuna adiuvat._ She clicked on its translation into Spanish and English.  
" _La fortuna favorece al audaz,"_ she whispered. "Fortune favours the bold."  
How strange that a man as gentle – as meek – as John Black should have something like this tattooed across his back, she wondered.  
Bold? she thought, switching the computer off. The last word she would use to describe that man was bold.

"You okay, baby?" her mama enquired, peering around the door.  
"Just looking up something - " she began but her words were drowned out by the sound of John revving the motorcycle's engine.  
Mama tsk-tsked. "You want that I tell him not to do that when you're studying?" she asked.  
"No!" Marie Carmen cried. "I mean, no, no need. He's our tenant, we don't want to get into his bad books. It's okay."  
"Something weird about him," Mama said, peering out her window. She had to lean a little further out to see into his yard and she made no effort to hide herself. "Always playing around with those bikes. He should be out drinking, eating, enjoying some woman's company, like every other _normal_ American tourist."  
"Maybe he's gay?" Marie Carmen said. _Por favor, no,_ she prayed.  
"He's not," Mama said decisively. "I already asked him."  
"Mama!" she hissed, scandalised. "You did not!"  
"I did," she said. "He said no, so I said, why are you single? What's wrong with you? And he said - oh, never mind."  
"What did he say?" Marie Carmen said. It came out like a plea, she couldn't help it. Her mother looked at her sharply.  
"He said his girlfriend cheated on him. He came back from somewhere and found her with another man. So he's taking a break from relationships."  
"He just told you that?"  
"Well, I had to work on him a little bit to get the full story, but yes, he told me. Eventually," Mama said proudly. "So I said he should go out and do a little salsa, drink a little rum, have a little fun ... shave that dirty beard, cut his hair ..."  
"Ma- _maaa_!" Marie Carmen wailed.  
"It's true, he looks like a homeless man. Who would want to touch that?"  
 _Me_ , Marie Carmen thought. _Me!_  
"Anyway," her mother said, yanking at the bed cover to straighten it. " _A mí, plín._ I don't care. As long as he pays his rent, I guess it's better he lives like a monk than has a string of nasty _chicas_ in and out of my house. Back to your books," she added and Marie Carmen returned to her room.

When she looked out the window, he was gone. She sat at her desk and opened his accountancy book, picked up her pen.  
 _I wonder what kind of woman would cheat on a man like John Black?_ she thought. She glanced down at her book, momentarily guilty. _Oh, well_ , she reasoned _, I'm failing anyway.  
_ She pushed the book away and thought about John, doodling _Fortis Fortuna adiuvat_ all over her notebook.


	4. Chapter 4

"Aurelio," Anna said raising her hands as though she wanted to surrender, "Auri, calm down. Just chill. Everything's good, man."  
Aurelio was looking at her as though he'd seen a ghost. Which, effectively, he had.  
"Are you fucking kidding me?" he said, his voice hoarse. "Is this a fucking _hoax_?"  
He picked up an empty beer bottle and flung it at her head. Anna ducked and it smashed off the wall behind her.  
"Are you fucking _serious_ , Anna Quinn?" he said raising his voice. "ARE YOU FUCKING SHITTING ME?"  
His voice reached a roar and he punctuated it by flinging another bottle. She ducked behind a packing box but he stomped after her.  
"Do you know," he said, poking her chest with the tip of his index finger, "do you know I _mourned_ you? I got Fr Flaherty to say masses for your fucking soul. For your soul, Quinn, for your fucking _soul_."  
He balled his fingers and pressed them to his mouth.  
"You lucky I don't hit women," he muttered, " 'cause I really wanna punch you in the face right now."  
"Go ahead," Anna said, "I deserve it. Wouldn't be the first time I took a punch."  
Aurelio seemed to consider it, then turned away.  
"Nah," he said finally.  
Anna looked around his tiny apartment. The shelves were empty, the rickety old sofa she's slept on the last time she was there was gone. Instead, six packing boxes were stacked in the middle of the room, ready for removal.  
"You got a new place, Auri?" she asked conversationally.  
Back still turned to her, he raised a hand like a traffic cop. "You need to shut your piehole for a while, Quinn," he said. "I'm still processing this."  
"Sure," she whispered and sank down by the wall till she was sitting cross-legged on the ground. She made herself small and waited.

"So," Aurelio said, opening a beer and handing it to her. "You bin in Seattle all this time?"  
She'd been allowed to get up and join him at the breakfast bar. She'd asked for something to eat, but he'd snorted in derision and given her a beer instead. When he opened the fridge, she noticed there was nothing else inside.  
"Yeah," she said. "I got a job and settled down. The way you do."  
"Uh-huh," he said. "The way you do, uh-huh. And where's John?"  
She glanced at him sharply. "If anyone knows where John is, it's you."  
"Why you say that?" he asked casually. She noticed he wouldn't meet her eye.  
"You've got his dog, Auri, there's dog hair everywhere in this place. And I bet you've got his car somewhere safe too."  
Aurelio drank deep. "Yeah, well," he said. Anna waited for him to say more but apparently _Yeah, well_ counted as a full sentence.  
"Speaking of the dog, where is he?"  
"He's at my fiancée's house," he said. "We're movin' in together. You lucky I came by today, most of my shit is at her place. Just leavin' this crap here till the end of the month."  
"Fiancée?" Anna repeated with a whistle. "And who's the lucky girl?"  
Aurelio sighed. "Friend of Rosalia," he said.  
"Your sister Rosalia?" Anna said. "Who? Does she work at The Continental?"  
"Yeah," he said reluctantly. "Ginger."  
Anna whooped. "Ginger!" she cried. "Ginger Alessandri agreed to go out with – no, wait, she agreed to marry you? What magic did you work, man?"  
Aurelio eyed her coldly. "Met her at your funeral, bitch. I was so upset that she bought me a drink afterwards. The rest, as they say, is history."  
Anna bowed her head, scraping the label off her bottle with a fingernail.  
"Once again, Aurelio, I am really, really sorry."  
"Yeah, well," he said again. And again, that was it.

Before he left to go back to Ginger's house, he opened one of the boxes and took out a blanket, throwing it at her. It smelled of dog and Anna winced involuntarily.  
"That or nothing," Aurelio said.  
"No problem," she said humbly. It would take a while to get back into his good books.  
"You outta here by tomorrow morning," he said and it wasn't a question.  
"Sure," she said. "I just need to know – I need to know where John is."  
"Bitch, I done telling you this: I don't know. Truly, I do not know."  
"Winston mentioned Puerto Rico ..."  
"Nice place," Aurelio said cutting her off. "Great beaches. Great rum."  
He patted his jacket pocket for his car keys. "Good luck, Quinn."  
"Is he in Puerto Rico?" she asked, grabbing his sleeve. "Just give me that, Auri. Puerto Rico, yes or no?"  
"I. Don't. Know," he said, shaking her off.  
"The last time you saw him," she begged, "where was he? Where was he going?"  
Aurelio sighed and turned around. "You wanna know?"  
"Yes!"  
"Last time I saw him, he was heading to Vermont. To his in-laws."  
She gaped at him, her mouth open.  
"His in-laws?"  
"Yup," he said. "He said he needed to see Helen's mom and dad. He said they were the only family he had left. So if you're looking for him, I suggest you go there. Tell 'em you're their dead daughter's husband's lover and see if they can shed any light on his current location."  
She shook her head slowly. "Damn, Aurelio, you're _mean_ ," she complained.  
He shrugged. "Yeah, well," he said again. But this time he added, "Seriously, bitch? Considering what you put me through, you earned it."


	5. Chapter 5

John had intended to visit Helen's parents for longer, but after two days he found their company more of a burden than the healing he had sought. They, on the other hand, had been devastated when he announced his intention to leave.  
"But, John," Helen's mother had said, "where on earth will you go?"  
He'd glanced at her and looked away. She looked like an older version of her daughter, like one of those composite pictures used by police to show how a missing person might age. He couldn't look at her too long; it hurt too much.  
"I'm not sure, Catherine," he answered – glance up, make eye contact, look away, look away – "but I guess it's time to look into getting a house somewhere."  
"Have you thought of Vermont?" her father had said. "We've been happy here."  
"As happy as can be expected," her mother murmured.

After Helen's death, they had sold Helen's childhood home and retired to Vermont. They'd bought a picturesque little house outside Montpelier: Helen's mother took classes at the College of Fine Arts and her father, David, a retired professor of economics, contributed articles to newspapers and websites. Their new home was tastefully decorated with the quintessence of their previous life: their favourite Persian rug. The cushion covers they'd picked up in Morocco. Some of their beloved pieces of heavy Shaker furniture. Previously, their vast collections of books, vinyl records, old maps and paintings had been spread around a very large house that had high ceilings and airy windows, in their new home everything was stacked against walls and threatened to topple off shelves. And although they had photos of their daughter everywhere – as a child, as a teen, as an adult, as John's wife - there was nothing in their home that reminded John of who Helen had been, no trace of her love of clean lines and white simplicity. No ghosts. No memories. Whatever he had looked for, it wasn't there.

After only two days, her parents' home had felt claustrophobic and cluttered and he had to get out. He'd made his excuses and, despite their disappointment, he knew they'd understood. David had shook his hand, pumping it with more energy than necessary, and Catherine had given him a hug, dampening the shoulder of his shirt with her tears.  
"She loved you so much," she'd cried. "You were the best thing that ever happened to her."  
He'd swallowed. "She was the best thing that every happened to me," he answered gruffly. Her mother patted his face and asked him again, "Where will you go, John? I'll be so worried about you."  
And spontaneously, seeing one of their honeymoon photos in a silver frame on the mantelpiece, he'd said, "I might go to Puerto Rico."  
The idea seemed to make sense to them. They nodded their assent and, with one last hug, Helen's mother let him go.

xxx

A long time ago – another lifetime ago – Helen and John had spent their honeymoon on Puerto Rico. John hired motorbikes and showed Helen how to drive one. She'd protested, shrieked at the noise, the power of the vehicle, then had tentatively tried one. After a couple of wobbly turns around an empty car park she'd declared, "I love it!" Her skin was brown in the sun, the tip of her nose sunburned and peeling.  
"Don't I need a licence or something?" she'd asked, suddenly worried.  
"Tch," John clicked his tongue dismissively. "Whatever."  
"I love it when you break the law, Mr Wick," she'd said seductively and leaned over to pinch his butt.  
"You're my partner in crime, Mrs Wick."  
"Always," she returned with a grin.

xxx

If Helen's parents' home held no ghosts, then Puerto Rico was littered with memories. The first few weeks he'd driven his hired bike along all of the routes they'd taken when they first explored the island. It became a kind of obsession, to re-trace all of the places they'd been. When that was done, he realised he wanted to do it again – then he became conscious of the fact that there was no reason why he shouldn't. So he found a place to stay, renting a small house in a little village off the tourist trail, and bought himself a motorcycle that he systematically took apart and put back together again. As he did so in the little yard in front of his rented house, people stopped to look at what he was doing and very soon he was being asked to look at other people's bikes and do small repairs. One day he sat on his heels in the sinking sunshine of a warm afternoon, bits of metal laid out on the ground around him, the smell of something spicy he'd been given bubbling on the little stove inside and he'd felt something strange. It was such a weird feeling that he'd put down the rag in his hand so he could steady himself as he stood up. What was it?  
Oh, yes: he was content. This is what content felt like: warm sun on the nape of your neck, a task to do, a hot meal and a warm bed. Sure, it wasn't _happy_ , but who knew if he'd ever experience happy again. But did it matter? He was content. That was enough. And he'd allowed himself to smile – not the polite upturn of his lips that he'd gotten used to producing, but a real smile. A smile of contentment.

The weeks became one month, then two. Then he'd started looking for a home and somehow, three months had passed. He liked to drive along the coast, visiting new villages, occasionally enquiring if some place was for sale. His landlady had started to hint that she might want to him to move out, she'd mentioned how much more money she'd be able to make on Airbnb during the tourist season. John had found a house he liked the look of within driving distance of San Juan and had started looking into buying some furniture and appliances. He'd settle down – for a while, at least. Experience had taught him that his past would inevitably find him, but he might have a few years of peace.

As it happened, it was much shorter than that. Much, much shorter.


	6. Chapter 6

At first he couldn't quite put his finger on it. He'd stayed away for a couple of nights and when he returned, he'd had the feeling that someone had been in his house. He lifted the board that formed the base of the heavy wooden closet in his room and checked that all of his things were there: the passports, the money, Helen's bracelet. Whoever had been in his room hadn't found it, but other things felt like they'd been moved. It felt like his things had been too carefully replaced.  
"I'm paranoid," he thought, looking around. There was nothing out of place. The shoes he'd kicked off before he left still lay on the floor in a haphazard fashion, but yet it felt like someone had been snooping. He called Senora Alvarez and asked her if she'd been in the house.  
"Ai, no!" she cried, affronted. "Why would I be in your house?"  
He felt stupid; he couldn't explain why. It felt wrong? Ridiculous.  
"Maria Carmen," Senora Alvarez called. "Have you been in Mr Black's house?"  
The girl had popped her head around the door. "Why would I go into his house?" she asked, her plump face puzzled.  
"No matter," John murmured. "It's okay."  
Paranoia. _It was perfectly fine to be vigilant,_ his mentor had always said, _until vigilance becomes paranoia._ Is that what was happening?

He began to sleep fitfully, waking at every noise. At night, alone in the narrow bed of the spare room, he listened stiffly, pulling his arms close so he wouldn't bang against the wall. He should've been able to sleep in the large bed in the main bedroom, but it was an ornate piece with carvings of flowers and birds, an altar of fecundity.  
"La cama matrimonial," Senora Alvarez had said, patting the cover with a wink. The matrimonial bed. John hadn't wanted a matrimonial bed, he'd wanted a monk's cell, so he moved into the small room with a narrow bed probably intended for a child or a skinny teenager. Now he lay there, his ears straining to hear any creak or squeak from inside or out, only allowing himself to sleep when he could assign every noise to its rightful source.

A week or two passed without further incident, without any further inkling that someone might have been in his home, when he was woken one night by the creak of the door. He sat bolt upright in bed, drawing a knife from under the thin mattress. He ran to the door, lightly padding across the tiles, pulling on a t-shirt as he went. While he paused at the door, poised on his toes, he quickly ran through all of the possibilities: plenty of people still looking for him. Few knew where he was. Who had what to gain by killing him? It made no sense, he'd dotted all i's, crossed all t's – who was in his living room and was that person alone?

He thought about getting his gun – any one of the guns stowed around the house – but the noise would wake the two Alvarez women next door, Maria Carmen's room overlooked his yard. He pressed a thumb against the blade of the knife; it was satisfyingly sharp. The person downstairs seemed to know where they were going, making their way to the kitchen without causing too much noise. Fleet of foot, he took the stairs two at a time and launched himself at the dark figure from behind, wrapping an arm around their neck and pressing the blade to the neck till he felt a trickle of blood on his fingers. Only then did he realise that the person in his arms was small. Aghast, he released her, banging the light switch with his fist. The room lit up and he saw Maria Carmen opposite him, her face horror-struck. He opened his mouth to say something but she touched her throat and, on seeing the flow of blood, leaned forward and vomited at his feet.  
"What are you doing here?" he cried, leaping away.  
She retched and sobbed. "It's your birthday, I wanted to give you something for your birthday. A surprise."

She indicated the table behind her, where she'd set a vase of flowers down and a single red candle in a glass candle holder.  
"It's not my – " John began and stopped. It probably was the date in his fake passport – he had so many, he couldn't remember any more.  
"Why are you in here?" he asked instead, throwing a towel on the floor. Maria Carmen, still crying, turned to the sink, pulling a bucket out from underneath it. Seeing how quickly and assuredly she found it, John realised something, "You've been in here while I've been away. Haven't you?"  
She sniffed and nodded, turning her back on him.  
"Why?" he demanded.  
"Because I love you," she declared, turning to him. She grabbed a handful of kitchen paper and pressed it against the bleeding wound. "I love you, John, I _love_ you."  
John was confounded. "You love me?" he repeated. "You're half my age - I could be your father! Why on earth do you _love_ me?"  
"I don't know why!" she cried in exasperation. Still pressing the paper to the wound, she stretched out a hand imploringly: "But age is just a number. If two people love each other, it does not matter. I love you and you can give me a chance – don't tell me you have never wanted to date a twenty-year-old?"  
"Yes, I have," he said patiently. "... when I was twenty. You're a nice girl, Maria Carmen, I really mean that – but you're... to me you're a child."

Realisation dawned across her face.  
" _Muy bien,_ " she said coldly. "Fine."  
"I don't mean to be cruel – " he began.  
" _Bien_ ," she cut him off.  
"I'm sorry about the knife," he said. "But I thought – "  
"I suppose I am lucky you chose the knife," she said slyly. "And not one of your guns."  
She held his gaze for a heartbeat. Two.  
"Yes," he answered finally. "We are both very lucky."  
"I will clean this up," she said. "And I think we will not say anything to my mother."  
John nodded. She nodded at his t-shirt, splattered with a few drops of her blood.  
"You can give me that, too," she said. He hesitated, then removed it and handed it over. She looked him up a down, as though she were examining fruit at the supermarket.  
"You have many, many scars," she observed. "Too many."  
He turned to leave, then realised he had shown her his tattoo. He retreated quickly.  
"Fortune favours the brave," she said and he glanced back at her, over his shoulder.  
"Not always," he said.

He waited, perched on the side of the bed, till he heard her leave. Then he went through the house and gathered his guns, packed his things. Heart thumping, he tried to figure out where to go next. Only when dawn arrived did he decide that his best bet would be to do nothing. If she had any sense, the girl would explain away the cut on her neck, but if he just disappeared immediately, she might be tempted to raise the alarm – the knifing, the guns, and God knows what else she'd found. If he just continued as normal for a few days, he'd have time to prepare his escape – slip away in the middle of the night or get a sudden phone call requiring his return to the continental United States.

Slowly he lay back on the bed and pulled the thin cotton cover over his legs and chest. His heart-rate had returned to normal. He stared at the ceiling and thought about who might have been trying to enter his home and only then would he allow himself to admit that a small part of him had hoped that it might have been Anna Quinn.


	7. Chapter 7

Finding Helen's parents was easy. Anna knew her surname and John had once let it slip that his wife's father had been a professor of something or other before he retired. After that, she only needed to spend a couple of hours on a computer in a grotty little internet cafe to find they were in Vermont. With a little digging, she discovered photos of Helen's mother on a site for a historical costume-making group: a photo of a beaming, dark-haired woman who looked like her daughter, bent over a dress she was sewing for some re-enactment or other. One quick phone call to the group's secretary got Helen's mother's address and her ex-directory phone number. Anna noted down the number, said her thanks and paid her bill at the cafe counter. Then she hit a few second-hand bookstores till she had enough books to fill a small cardboard box, upon which she scrawled _Helen_.

Getting information from Helen's parents was even easier – far too easy, in fact. She rang them, saying she had her number from John, and that she had some books that she'd borrowed from Helen, and would they like them back? Helen's mother had almost sobbed over the phone: of course they'd love to meet a friend of Helen's and they had so few of her things now that her house had burned down! How kind! So Anna'd turned up at the door, tried to explain that she was passing through and thought they'd like their daughter's books back – but she didn't get any further. Helen's mom ("Call me Catherine!") tried to hug her around, then over the box, till Helen's father took it off her and placed it on the bureau in their hallway.  
"Silvia Plath!" he exclaimed, removing a battered copy of _The Bell Jar_. "Oh, Helen!" he tsked, shaking his head.

They plied her with coffee, eager to hear about her friendship with Helen, wondering why they couldn't remember her name. The lies tripped off Anna's tongue – member of the museum society, worked with Helen on the committee, borrowed some of her books, Helen had such wonderful taste, all the classics – and if the story seemed porous, neither of the dead woman's parents was inclined to poke holes in it. They simply relished Anna's stories about Helen – stories that never happened. But Anna talked about dinner parties she and her partner Mark had attended at John and Helen's home. (Mark Pfeiffer? Where did that come from? Mark Pfeiffer and Anna, John and Helen, at a jolly soirée, swigging glasses of Merlot? What the fuck?), shopping trips with Helen, coffee dates. And the older couple were entranced, open-mouthed, as though she were telling them a fairy story. Which, in a manner of speaking, she was.

"And have you heard from John?" she asked brightly. His photo was everywhere. The kind of cheesy posed photos that are supposed to look natural and arty, the ones you post on Instagram: hair tossed artfully, wide grins, mesmerised by each other's eyes, blithely ignoring the person with a camera. It made her sick.  
 _You're such a moron, John_ , she thought, annoyed.  
"He came to visit, didn't he, David?" Catherine asked. "But he left after a couple of days. I think he needed time to ... to mourn."  
She said the words, wringing her hands.  
Anna shook her head sadly. "Poor thing," she said. "And where did he go? Has he returned to New York? Mark said he'd been trying to contact him but didn't want to, you know, put him under pressure or anything at this difficult time..."  
"He said he was going back to Puerto Rico," David said and, seeing her blank face, added, "Where they went on their honeymoon."  
"Oh, of course, yes, I remember Helen showing me the photos..." she said quickly. "I've heard it's amazing. Have you been?"  
"We were the ones who recommended it!" Catherine said eagerly. "There was some issue with John's passport – "  
(Like, he couldn't choose which of his fakes to use, Anna thought)  
" – so we told them to go to Puerto Rico. We'd been there the year before to – "  
" – Ponce," finished Helen's father. "The 'pearl of the south', they call it. Beautiful place."  
They did that a lot, cutting into each other's sentences, sometimes finishing them, sometimes just talking over one another. It made for a very demanding conversation.  
"I think that's probably where he's gone. That's where they went on their honeymoon – "  
"Well, in and _around_ Ponce," Helen's father corrected.  
"Mostly Ponce," Catherine said firmly but Anna cut in before they got distracted by their argument.  
"Pearl of the south?" Anna said. "Sounds beautiful. I must add that to my list of places to see."  
She smiled and sipped her coffee, and moved the conversation on to the subject of one of their many paintings. Tripping over each other's words, eager to tell her who'd painted it and where they got it, Helen's parents gave her with more coffee and cake, disappointed when, half an hour later, she said she had to leave.

In all her years working professionally, Anna Quinn had learned that sometimes it was easier to hide in plain sight. She flew to Puerto Rico from Florida and while at the airport attached herself to a group of women who were taking a trip to Puerto Rico for the beaches. And the booze. And the men.  
"Kayla is getting married next year," one of the women said.  
Kayla, clearly the alpha-female, the ringleader, leaned over and flapped a manicured hand in Anna's face.  
"This is so _not_ a bachelorette thing," she said. "We used to take holidays together, like, all the time, so this is our last chance to get an all-girls' break in before I get married."  
Because, Anna thought, once Kayla gets married none of these women will be allowed to get together unless it's at her convenience.  
 _Typical spoiled princess,_ Anna said, mentally clicking her tongue against the roof of her mouth. Girls like Kayla had tortured her through middle school pointing at her weird clothes, threadbare shoes and sullen face. By the time they moved to high school, they flew in their own orbit, dating good looking senior boys and treating anyone outside their circle with disdainful disinterest. Back in high school when she was just scruffy Ann Finnerty, Anna had spent a long time observing them from underneath the long fringe of her dyed black hair, watching how they spoke and moved. Ingratiating herself with Kayla's group was a piece of cake.

Echoing their sing-song voices, their flapping hands and their pursed lips, she flattered and giggled and made herself so amiable that she was invited to join them before they were even called to board. She was alone, right? (Caught her stupid boyfriend cheating the week before - _awww!_ sympathetic hand waving and tossing of hair – well, she was going enjoy the holiday anyway, even if Mr Shithead wasn't going with her!)  
"Join us," one of the girls, Ashley, said. She had the same straightened hair, the same suspiciously even tan as Kayla. "The more, the merrier, Anna!"  
Feigning shyness, Anna acquiesced, and changed her seat so she sit beside Ashley to learn more about the ins and outs of friendship in Kayla's pack.

xxx

The women could not hold their liquor. The first night there, Anna watched in horror as they downed cocktails with abandon, growing more and more drunk, before toddling off towards the beach, discarding shoes and bags on the way. She scuttled behind them, gathering up scattered belongings and steered two of the women back to the hotel. She put them in the recovery position on their beds, then had a snoop around their things before she made her way to bed. The next morning, she was alone for breakfast and it was fast obvious that the other six women had no intention of getting up before midday. Seizing the opportunity, she made her way through the old town of Ponce, looking for places that looked like they might have attracted John Wick's attention. She showed photos to shop and bar owners and although her Spanish was rusty, it was adequate enough to know he hadn't been there. By the time she got back to the hotel after lunch, the other women had descended and were groaning off their hangovers beside the pool. Anna lay beside them, her eyes hidden behind dark glasses as she moaned and complained and swore she was never going to touch alcohol again. Till that evening, of course.

The second evening she faked a headache to avoid going to a nightclub – no point in even asking there, she couldn't imagine John Wick at a nightclub. She spent the evening slipping from one bar to another, shaking off chat-ups and offers of free drinks. The next day, she trailed behind Brittany, Ashley and Kayla as they went from shop to shop, looking at clothes. She oohed and aahed and allowed herself be persuaded to buy a tight little black Lycra dress that was splashed with red flowers, like splatters of blood.  
"You so have the figure for that," Ashley said enviously and thrust a pair of high heels at her. Anna slipped them on and looked at herself in the mirror. The last time she'd worn something like that was when she and John were working, many moons ago. And the shoes – always the first casualty of one of their professional outings - usually got abandoned along the way.  
"Buy! Buy! Buy!" the others chanted and, laughing, she pulled out her credit card and had the shop girl ring them up.

That evening, dressed in her new dress, unsteady in her high heels, Anna went with the group to one of the bars she'd been to the previous night. She'd wanted to slip away again and visit a couple of hotels that she'd marked in her guidebook, but she'd allowed herself to be persuaded to put on her new dress and shoes and go with the other women.  
 _It's just a night off,_ she thought. The chances that John was still in Ponce were very slim. Knowing him, he was probably somewhere as far from people as he could manage, somewhere where he could drive his car or bike. By a beach, probably.  
So she laughed and agreed and let Ashley style her hair. It had grown to her shoulders; she was trying to grow out her blond highlights, something Ashley did not approve of. She also got a telling off for not getting a tan, but Anna couldn't persuade the other woman that that had more to do with genetics than a lack of willingness.  
"I'm Irish," she said. "We just freckle. If you're lucky, the freckles join up and you look a bit darker."  
"Tanning booth," Ashley said, shocked. "Spray-on tan, babe. We don't live like savages."  
She took a swig from her can of rum and coke and handed it to Anna, who pretended to drink before placing the can discreetly on the floor.

They got out of their taxis in the old part of town.  
"This one!" Rochelle announce, pointing across the road. Anna stiffened when she saw the bar it was a typical tourist trap, with a large, long bar in a cavernous cellar, and one she had already visited _pro forma_ – she couldn't imagine John going there voluntarily but it was the most popular bar in the quarter so she wanted to tick it off her mental list. The bar itself was downstairs, the ground floor consisted of a large room where salsa music played without a pause and couples danced languorously, oblivious to the people gathered around, drinking their cocktails and chatting. The group of women went down the stone stairs, bending their heads under the low, arched cellar ceiling.  
"This is so pretty," Ashley said. "So exotic."  
"All original," Rochelle said. "I read about it in my guidebook."  
"I'm just going to hit the ladies'," Anna said and picked up her clutch. She wove her way through the crowd, smacking off a hand that rested on her butt for a second, and was just about to push the door that led to the toilets when she saw a pair of legs that she recognised coming down the stone stairs. _How can you recognise legs?_ she wondered as she slipped into the corridor that led to the restrooms, then pushed open the door a tiny crack, enough to put her eye up against it.  
It wasn't the legs, it was the gait, the long tread, the cautious steps. It was John.

" _Of all the bars,_ et cetera," she muttered. "I didn't even have to fucking look for him."  
She watched him duck his head under the arched ceiling of the cellar bar, his eyes scanning the place, searching for exits, toilets, door behind the bar. Why on earth had he come here? The place was a rat-trap, one way in and probably only one way out. Then a girl popped out from behind him, grabbed his hand and pulled him gently behind her in the direction of an empty space at the long bar. She was dark-haired, dark-eyed, small and curvy, with a wide, smiley face. And she was about half his age.  
"Ugh, _John_ ," she said out loud and she watched him walk behind her, bowing his head when the ceiling was too low. He was wearing dark jeans and a black t-shirt, his hair was a little longer, his beard a little scruffier, his skin a little more tan. And when he raised a hand to catch the barman's attention, she saw he wasn't wearing his wedding ring any more.  
"Scumbag," Anna said and jumped back when the door was shoved into her face by someone trying to get by.  
" _Perdón_ ," a young man said, pushing past her, his face curious.  
She smiled at him and went down to ladies' restroom. She knew it would only be a matter of minutes before John came down the corridor to scope the place and, sure enough, when the door of the ladies' restroom was pushed open by another woman, she saw the back of his head as he entered into the men's toilet opposite.

By the time she returned to the table, the other women were on their second drink and starting to get raucous.  
"I say we all have a round of shots," Kayla announced imperiously and clicked her fingers. "Anna, your turn!"  
Anna felt her hackles rise. John turning up at the bar was the last thing she'd expected or wanted, she'd wanted to find him on her own terms but instead he'd walked in on her night off with some ... some child in tow. Now she was being ordered around by Kayla, who had been tipsy before they'd even entered the bar and now had enough alcohol in her to consider herself the queen of Puerto Rico.  
"Vodka?" Anna asked into the round and those not busy flirting with the men at adjacent tables nodded in agreement.

She slid through the crowd, removing a hand from her ass as she went. John, on the far side of the bar, seemed to be having problems concentrating on his date. He kept glancing around anxiously, as though he sensed she was around. He'd always had good instincts, John. Anna watched him behind one of the stone columns dotted around the bar and remembered what she'd learned in training: the subconscious mind notes things far more quickly that the conscious mind. Chances were, he'd caught a glimpse of her while scanning the bar but while his brain was trying to process what he'd seen, his instincts were hitting the alarm button. He knew something was wrong, he just didn't know what.  
"Senora?" the barkeeper asked.  
"Seven vodkas," she said distractedly. Her own brain clicked. "No, six," she corrected, and continued to watch John. He was making an effort to concentrate on his date, smiling stiffly as she chattered away animatedly. Anna's lips twisted into a smile. She couldn't do anything she would've liked to: she couldn't confront him. She couldn't talk to him. She couldn't beat the shit out of him. But she could do something she was good at: torture him. She shoved money at the barkeeper and told him to keep the change, then made her way back to the table, where she deposited the drinks.

"I have to go to the restroom," she announced to no one in particular, then grabbed her clutch and slipped away. Careful to keep her back turned to him, she swaggered in her heels to change her gait, moving in a wide circle till she was close to John's table, his back to her. John had chosen a table close to a door marked 'Staff Only' in English and Spanish; she guessed it led to the kitchens, possibly to a back exit. The bar was full, she was gently swaying with the people pushing past. She checked the tables and chairs around, then moved closer, staring at the back of his head.  
"John," she said. "John. John. John."  
The din in the bar was loud, a constant ebb and flow of conversation. But she knew that he would hear her; or think he heard her. She grinned and said again, "John."  
It only took seconds. Anna could almost see the hair rise on the back of his neck, he shifted in his seat. She waited till he began to turn, just enough to see her out of the corner of his eye, then she turned away, walked a few steps and crouched a little, pretending to look for something on the floor. Slipping past a knot of noisy patrons standing around a tall table, she dropped to her knees and crawled in under a bench by the wall, holding her breath, expecting some enquiring face to peer under the bench to see what she was doing. None came. She scrambled along the floor under the long seat, avoiding people's feet and gently pushing handbags out of the way, till she came to the other end, close to the staff exit. She peered out past someone's purse and saw John in the middle of the bar, looking around frantically. He had no weapon; his hands clenched and unclenched as they did when he was nervous. The woman he'd come with was still at their table, looking confused. Anna watched as he moved swiftly past her and through the staff door, then scrambled out as fast as she could, to the surprise of the people at her table.  
"Dropped my keys," she said in explanation to their startled faces. Then she took off through the bar as quickly as she could without running. She got to the stairs and, glancing back, saw the staff door start to open. Controlling herself, she walked up the steps coolly, knowing she was out of view, and then walked casually out the door and flagged down one of the waiting taxis.

As it drove off she craned her head around, just in time to see John appear the doorway of the bar. He looked around, his hand pushing his hair back off his face. She couldn't see his facial expression but she would've paid good money to do so.  
"Bastard," she thought with a smirk. "I hope I've fucked his head up real bad."


	8. Chapter 8

John was rattled but it was nothing in comparison to Maria Carmen, who was freaked out.  
"Where did you go?" she kept insisting. "Why did you leave?"  
Her cheeks had two bright pink spots of colour, her Spanish accent was stronger than it usually was as she struggled to find the right English words.  
"I was just here, I turn around to look and you are run away!" she cried accusingly.  
"I thought I saw someone," he said weakly. He pulled over his drink, sipped it and then pushed it away. He'd ordered a Cuba Libre but was now wishing he had just stuck to Coke.  
"Your ex-girlfrien'?" she asked with the same sly tone look she'd had when she'd mentioned his guns.  
John suddenly felt tired. He didn't quite know what she was talking about, though her knowing tone of voice implied she had information on him that she wasn't supposed to know. It was probably something he'd told her mother to keep her quiet, some sob-story he'd concocted to get the old woman to leave him alone and stop interrogating about his sex life – or lack thereof. He wasn't good at lying, he was even worse at keeping his lies straight. Anna was always the one who'd looked after that kind of thing; she wove a web of banal but fictitious details and always managed to remember whom she'd told what to. John had only ever had to nod along. Keeping up with whatever he'd told Maria Carmen and Maria Carmen's mother was exhausting.

"No," he said shortly and saw the girl's chin jut into a pout. He softened his voice.  
"Actually, I thought it was someone I used to know from college."  
"Which college?" she asked eagerly, happy to show interest.  
John racked his brains. Had he mentioned a college already? God, he was sick of this charade.  
"Back home," he answered and before she could take umbrage at another taut answer, he gave her a smile, full wattage, and she smiled back at him, her rosy lips stretched almost from ear to ear in a happy smile.  
"I'm so glad we're doing this," she said.  
"Me, too," he mumbled.

Nothing could've been further from the truth. After he'd caught her in his house, she'd avoided him for a few days, not meeting his eyes when she left the house to go to her classes in the morning, skulking past his yard in the evening. His first impulse had been to throw everything he had into his bag and leave in the middle of the night – abandon his bike, sneak out to the second-hand car he'd bought when he first arrived, drive to San Juan and get the first flight back to the continental US. But years of training, of discipline kicked in: John did not trust impulsive behaviour. Way back when he'd been a teen, dragged from one temporary home to another, following a mother who believed that the next man would be her One True Love, his north star had been impulse: he had done what he'd felt compelled to do, without consideration for the consequences, because ... well, just because. He'd gone from fighting in the school yard to dabbling in dope, then ecstasy. He'd dropped out of school, hung out a friend's house whose parents were away all day at work. They'd drunk the contents of the parents' drinks cabinet and John had pilfered some of their money and a couple of the mother's smaller pieces of jewellery to buy some weed. The loss had been noted and the parents threatened to call the police; John's mother, sick of having to discipline the lanky, sullen teenager who was bigger than herself, let her latest husband had a go at it. He'd taken a hardcover book off the shelf and smacked the boy around the head a few times before John pushed back and knocked him over. Wailing, his mother propelled him out the door with all of her might, locking it firmly behind him. And thus he found himself on the streets of Queens late one night, with no jacket, no money and no clue what to do.

He spent a couple of weeks drifting around the city; at first he'd tried to find a bed at a homeless shelter but after a couple of nights there, an older man with the yellowish eyes of a cat pulled him down on the bunk beside him and began to stroke his thigh while the other men in the room studiously looked away. Such a pretty boy he was, such lovely bone structure, such soft lips. Pretty, pretty boy. He'd never need worry about having no money, with all the talent he so clearly had to offer. John had gulped, swallowed, and he watched the yellow eyes follow the bob of his Adam's apple before he pulled away and shoved the older man hard. He grabbed his shoes from beside his bed and went out into the cold, pulling the jacket around him that he'd gotten from the Salvation Army.

Kay Chen had found him – caught him – a couple of nights later. He'd been in Times Square, trying to pluck up the courage to rob a purse or bag from some unsuspecting tourist. He'd noticed her red handbag, the tip of her wallet sticking out, her head turned from him as she studied some guidebook. He'd moved closer, as stealthily, nonchalantly, as he could manage, then slipped his fingers into her bag. She grabbed his wrist, digging her long nails in, and spun around to face him.  
"Calm," she'd said in her cool voice. "Be calm. Everything will be fine."  
He'd felt almost mesmerised. Her face projected the calm she wanted him to show and her voice was low and even.  
"Are you a lost boy?" she'd asked in that same low tone and he was startled by the question.  
"Am I lost?" he repeated.  
"Are you a lost boy?" she'd said again, her voice even, without inflexion. She stared at him, her eyes as dark as his, almost hidden by the bangs that hung below her eyebrows, almost touching her dark lashes.  
"Yes," he'd answered, suddenly aware that he was, in fact, lost; that he'd always been lost.  
"Well, I have found you," she said and with a smile, released his wrist, leaving behind four red crescents of blood on his pale skin, the same colour of her nails. She'd taken him back to Michael Black, who'd greeted him like a prodigal son, and John had learned that they would train him. Make a man of him. A better man. The best man he could be.  
"What would be your weak spot?" Black had asked. "What do we need to work on?"  
John had swallowed. "I don't think," he said. "I guess I don't think stuff through."  
Chen and Black had nodded. "We can fix that, my boy," said Mr Black. "When you are finished your training with us, you will think everything through."  
xxx

And so he had steeled himself to stay put; or at least stay put long enough to not arouse suspicion. He knew that leaving San Luis would cause tongues to wag and Maria Carmen would no doubt be quick to tell anyone who wanted to know about his guns. The money. The passports. Whatever else she'd found. So he thought the matter through and came to the conclusion that for the time being, he had to keep his friends close but his enemies closer. He continued as though nothing had happened, as though he had nothing to hide. He repaired a moped for Fr. Antonio, he fixed a blocked drain for Maria Carmen's mother and accepted no payment for his service. And then he casually asked Maria Carmen if he could buy her dinner to make up for giving her such a fright.

Emotions flickered across her face like a film reel, before she finally gave in and said yes.  
"It's not a date," he'd said light-heartedly, "just an apology."  
"A date," she'd said scornfully, her eyes dancing. "Of course it's not a date!"  
They agreed not to tell her mother – so much easier if she didn't know – and John'd met her at a restaurant in Ponce's old town, hoping to impress her into silence by taking her somewhere so expensive and fancy that she'd forgive him any irregularities she might've noticed while rifling through his things.

After the meal – a nice meal: she was a pleasant young woman, easy company, even if her conversation steered on to topics he knew little about or had little interest in - she'd insisted they go to a bar, the coolest bar, the bar everyone went to, and against his better judgement he'd allowed her drag him into another tourist trap, the kind of place that set every alarm bell ringing. It was underground for a start, a place that was not good to get out of in a hurry. And it was full of American tourists and wealthier locals, mostly younger than him. He felt out of place in a bar full of people looking to get drunk and get laid, in that order. If Maria Carmen noticed his discomfort, she hadn't given any indication; she took his hand and tugged him through the crowd, gently elbowing people out of their way till she snagged them a table in the corner. Before he'd even sat down, his sixth sense began to tingle and he could barely focus on what Maria Carmen was saying. It was loud, it was full, and he glanced anxiously around, trying to figure out what was making him feel so uneasy. She kept grabbing his hand and, at one point, his chin to steer his face to hers so he would focus on his date and not look around. Aware that he was upsetting her, he put on an expression that he hoped was approximated pleasantly interested and smiled at her.

Then he heard his name. Or did he? His smile froze, he strained his ears. There it was again – or was it? He grabbed his hand away and turned his head. His stomach lurched: he thought he saw Anna Quinn but even as he blinked, she was gone.  
"Fuck!" he swore and turned in his seat.  
"John?" Maria Carmen said.  
He left the table, pushing through the crowd. She was gone. He shoved past a group of Americans and crashed into the kitchen, startling a waiter, the kitchen help.  
"Where's the exit? The exit?" he shouted in English. "The way out?"  
Most of them shrugged, not knowing what he was saying, but one of them pointed back the way he came.  
John cursed. The bar was a fucking death trap, only one way out. He dashed back the way he came, pushed through the crowds and up the stairs, on to the street. People smoking outside looked at him curiously.  
"Did a woman come this way?" he demanded. "A blond woman? Blond? Small?"  
" _Rubia? Sí_ ," a man said, crushing a cigarette butt underfoot. "Taxi."  
And he pointed at a car driving down the street. John squinted but he could see nothing that would distinguish who was in the cab.  
" _Gracias_ ," he'd said wearily and returned to Maria Carmen. When he finally managed to calm her, he bought her another drink, allowed her to hang her arms around his neck while they swayed in time to some sad Latin song, before taking her home and depositing her at the door with a kiss on her forehead. She was drunk enough not to care about the fatherly gesture, she ran a finger up and down his chest and suggested she go back to his place for another drink.  
"Next time," he promised and held the door open for her.  
"Next time," she agreed and blew him a kiss.

He let himself in, turned on no lights but sneaked through the house barefoot, a gun in his hand. It was empty, no one had been there, the little traps he'd set to detect if anyone had crossed the threshold were still intact. He sat on a chair in the dark kitchen and ran a hand through his hair, pulled at his beard.  
Had he really seen Anna Quinn? How could he be sure? He hesitated a moment, then pulled his phone out of his pocket and scrolled through the numbers. He chose one and hit the 'dial' button, listening to the beeps as it connected. The voice that answered was female.  
"I know who this is," the voice said sharply. "And I'm gonna tell you who this is: this is Aurelio's fiancée and as of next month, his wife. So I'm telling you now: you do not want to be calling him, you get me? You do not want to be calling him unless you want him to fix a fender or spray some bodywork, you hear? And you most certainly do not want to be calling him in the middle of the night. So whatever this call is about, the answer is no thank you, fuck you very much."

And she hung up. John stared at the screen of the phone, astonished. He scrolled again till he found the number for The Continental, then hesitated. He scrolled again till he found Winston's mobile number – and hesitated again. Finally he put the phone down and checked that all the door and windows were bolted. He gathered a blanket off his bed and lay down on the narrow, horsehair-stuffed couch and spent a restless night weighing up his options and thinking them through, all the while suppressing the urge to pick up his gun, walk out of that house and disappear.


	9. Chapter 9

In the back of the taxi, Anna laughed silently to herself, all the way back to the hotel. Her good humour followed her all the way up to the fourth floor; she found herself smirking at her reflection in the elevator mirror. It was only upon unlocking the hotel room door, that she suddenly fully realised what she'd done. The realisation that she had forfeited any advantage over Wick in order to fuck up his head slammed her from behind and she sank down on to the bed, kicking off her new shoes as she did so.  
God, she was so stupid. So, so stupid. It was always the way – even when they were training, Michael Black used to take her aside to tell her off for teasing John.  
"It'll get you into trouble one of these days," he warned.  
But Anna had disagreed. It was all fine and well as long as _she_ was the one to tease him. As soon as she had ever suspected someone else was mocking her partner, her feathers were immediately ruffled and she began to prowl, looking for ways to defend his honour – whether he wanted her to or not. But he was her John, hers to poke fun at, to good-naturedly tease and taunt – except now her desire to have a little fun at his expense meant that he knew she was here and he knew she was looking for him.

She chewed her knuckles, as she always did when she was thinking. She had to think like Wick; what would he do now? Assuming he had reason to flee, he might make a run for it – he might be heading for the nearest airport right now, in which case he could end up anywhere. Literally anywhere. He had the money, he had the passport – or passports, as the case may be. Or he might wait till she turned up looking for him. If he had nothing to hide, no reason to want to avoid her, he'd stay put until she found him, because they both knew she would find him eventually. Or maybe he'd just wait till she turned up and kill her. Finish the job himself.

 _Stupid Anna_ , she thought again. It would've been so much easier to track him down and wake him for a parlay with the barrel of a handgun jammed between his teeth. Find out whether he'd really hired that bumbling professional to take her out. Maybe it was all a huge mistake? After all, he had no reason to want to see her dead. Unless that little Latina was a reason – maybe that's why he never came back for her. He'd moved on. He was retiring again and tidying up the loose ends left behind in the previous chapter of his life.

Her head hurt. This kind of thing – the analysis, the thinking, the overthinking - was John's forte. When they worked together, they would do their research and reconnaissance and thrash out the details of the job. At least, Anna would thrash them out, throwing out suggestions, coming up with ideas, one wilder than the last. If it was up to her, she would approach the job like a cat, moving from point to point, watching and waiting and deciding on the spot how to proceed. John, on the other hand, liked to think things through. It was typical of his training, he'd become a tactical expert, always expecting the unexpected and planning for it. He was a master of Plan Bs. Plan Cs. And the occasional Plan D. He used to listen to Anna's ideas then raise a hand to stop her mid-flow. She'd roll her eyes and John would look down at her, face serious.  
"Let me think it through," he'd say.

It always frustrated her; he'd go off for a walk or lock himself in the bathroom, anywhere where she was not. He was the senior partner of the two, so he had the last say in their plans and she had to go along with what he suggested. It really riled her to acquiesce; she argued with him on every point, sometimes long after she'd seen the sense of his argument herself. On the job, she'd deliberately ignored his instructions and had almost ended up killed on one occasion and had a bullet skim her shoulder a second. The third time she did what liked, rather than John's pedantic plan, she'd received a beating from a Russian druglord's bodyguard before John managed to step in and pull him off. He'd disposed of the larger man with a couple of bullets and put her over his shoulder, struggling under her weight to aim his gun accurately at a second man who burst through the door, gun cocked and loaded. John ignored her gasps of pain from the broken ribs sustained at the steel toecaps of her opponent's boots and had dumped her in the back of the car, telling her to shut up, just shut up, when she tried to explain what had happened. He took off, tires squealing, and she was thrown up against the window. She moaned and he glanced over at her. He opened his mouth as though to say something then shut it again, pressed his lips together and overtook a taxi, speeding between it and an oncoming car without so much as flinching.

John helped her into The Continental, a long coat slung over her shoulders to hide the blood. Not that anyone in the lobby would be paid them much heed, but Winston was a stickler for protocol and Anna Quinn hobbling across his Persian rugs, bruised and battered, was not in keeping with the _ambiente_.  
Charon took one look at her and pursed his lips.  
"Again?" he asked wearily. "It is becoming quite the habit, Miss Quinn."  
"Fuck off."  
Her mouth hurt too much to say more. One of her teeth felt a little loose.  
"The doctor is rather busy tonight but I will send him up presently," Charon said. "Now please move along before you ... drip."  
He proffered their room key disdainfully. Charon always found the new agents very tiresome. They lacked that certain polish they liked to see in their clientele; luckily many of them didn't last their first year, so the issue was one that tended to resolve itself. And while young Mr Wick would, in time, acquire that world-weary poise so many of their guests affected, the girl – and she was barely more than a girl, only 21 or 22, - had the restlessness of a wound spring and the foul mouth of a guttersnipe. He repressed a shudder and found her angry blue eyes focussed on him. He gave her a tight-lipped smile which she did not return.

John nodded at him at took the key and led her to the elevator. She leaned on him in the elevator but he was immobile, his head turned away. It was rare that he was angry with her but when he was, he couldn't bear to look at her. Anna let him open the hotel room door and steer her on to the bed. Wordlessly he splashed some bourbon into a glass and held it out.  
"Drink," he said and he went into the bathroom to take a shower. Anna sipped carefully from the glass, the cut on her lip stinging when the alcohol hit it.

When John came out, a towel wrapped around his waist, there was a rap on the door and the doctor entered, throwing his bag onto the bed. He sighed when he saw her.  
"I think you should consider another profession," he said. "This is the third time this month. You runts only earn peanuts anyway and most of it is being spent on my services. Why don't you cut your losses and bow out – become a manicurist or a florist or something that doesn't involve getting beaten up?"  
All the while he was turning her head this way and that, daubing her mouth with a cloth to see whether her split lip needed stitches.  
"Either you're extraordinarily bad at this or extraordinarily unlucky," the doctor said, threading his needle.  
"Or extraordinarily stupid," John muttered, rubbing his hair with a towel. She couldn't reply; the doctor was holding her chin in a vice grip as he quickly sewed the wound, one, two stitches. Pride wouldn't let her cry out but her ears filled with tears of pain when she winced, the throbbing from her ribs shooting up into her skull.

The doctor checked his watch impatiently and ordered her to lift her shirt, prodding her ribcage to make her yelp.  
"Probably cracked," he proclaimed. "Not much I can do now, you can get an x-ray tomorrow at my practice downtown to make sure. Which will wipe out any profit you might have made tonight, mind you."  
John heaved a sigh.  
"It's okay," Anna said quickly. "Probably just bruised."  
The doctor fished around in his bag and removed a roll of bandage.  
"Mr Wick," he said and flung it at him. "Tape her up good and tight. Here are a few Advil – take 'em and slow down on the whiskey. I've got to go – other people need me more tonight."  
He tipped an imaginary cap at them and was gone.

"You will probably have to remove your brassiere," John said in his formal way, his eyes shifting away in embarrassment. He'd gotten dressed for the night, a pair of cotton pants and a black t-shirt, barefoot on the hotel rug. Standing before him, she pulled off her bra and pressed an arm across her breasts. He'd seen her naked often enough but that was usually at her instigation; he'd never come within arm's reach of her, though. Now he was gently, gingerly, wrapping the wide bandage around her ribcage, trying to avoid his fingertips brushing her skin. Anna looked down at his bent head: he'd had his hair cut short, but now it was starting to grow out and was at an annoying stage where tufts stood up at all angles, resistant to any kind of gel. It made her smile when she saw him in the morning, rubbing sleep out of his eyes with a halo of dark spikes around his head like a crown of thorns.

John tugged the bandage and she cringed under his touch.  
"Hurt?" he said shortly.  
"Yes," she said. "No. A bit, I guess."  
He tied it swiftly and sat back.  
"Why don't you follow the plan?"  
"Follow _your_ plan," she corrected.  
"Follow _our_ plan," he said. " _The_ plan. Why don't you do it? You keep doing your own thing and you keep getting your ass kicked. We're losing money, Quinn, and it's only a matter of time before you get yourself killed."  
She was silent.  
"Why, Quinn?" he insisted.  
"Have you ever considered the idea that I might not want to follow your plan?" she said and even as the words came out of her mouth, she realised how petulant she sounded.

He stared at her and she stared back. It had taken her a while to learn to stare him down – at first she'd been quick to wither under his gaze. He could stare at her, head cocked slightly, as though she was some kind of strange specimen that he was about to dissect. Ordinarily guarded and reserved, he stared at her with a kind of frankness that made her squirm and she had to steel herself not to look away.  
"Why do you not want to do what I suggest?" he said finally, choosing his words carefully.  
She shook her head. She knew how it would sound if she told him. She knew how childish she was being but as long as she didn't say it, it wasn't a fact. If she said it -  
"I'm just sick of everyone telling me to do what you say. Like, you're Mr Perfect. As though you know everything," she blurted out. _For fuck's sake, Anna,_ she chided herself. _Zip it, bitch!_ But she couldn't.  
"You're the golden boy and I'm your sidekick. The idiot child with a target on her back. Do you know how many fucking people have told me or hinted to me that it's just a matter of time before I take a bullet? Before I even signed my contract, fucking Winston said, 'Stick with Jonathan and he'll keep you alive'."  
"So … you're jealous?" John asked, confused. "You're jealous because everyone thinks I'm better at this than you?"  
"No!" she cried. "I mean, yes. It pisses me off that they all think that you're better at this than me. Of course it does. But I hate the fact that me staying alive depends on you. I don't want to depend on you to keep me alive, Johnny. I don't want to depend on anybody, except myself. I want to be able to defend myself without your help because what's gonna happen when you're not there any more?"

John's head sank. He looked at the carpet for a couple of minutes then met her eyes again.  
"We're a team, Annie," he said. "We can learn from each other, we can teach each other to be better at what we do. I know I drive you crazy – all the plans, all the contingencies. But it's my duty to keep you alive and this is the only way I know how to do it."  
"But it shouldn't be your responsibility," she argued. "I'm responsible for myself."  
He laid a hand on her arm and she started under his warm skin. It was the first time he'd ever touched her voluntarily, apart from trying to pin her down in a judo hold or jab her in jujitsu.  
"I can be responsible for you if I know you've got my back," he said quietly. "And as long as you're off doing your shit, you haven't got my back. Do you understand?"  
Suddenly, Anna did.  
"We're in this together," he said. "Mutually assured destruction or mutually assured protection, I don't know which. But in any case, we've got to look out for each other. Get it?"  
She nodded. He removed his hand, putting it behind his back as though he didn't trust himself not to touch her again. He took a step backwards and continued formally, "And if this happens again, Quinn, I'm afraid I will be forced to ask Michael Black to terminate our contract on the basis of professional incompatibility. Can we agree on this?"  
"It won't happen again," she said. "I'll cover you, Wick. I promise."  
"And I promise I will always cover you," he said.  
They stared at each other. It felt like something they should shake on, but Anna thought that they'd touched each other once too often that night. John nodded slowly and turned away, pulling back the blanket on the bed.  
"Good night," he said, getting in. He rolled on to his side, face hidden from her.  
"Good night," she answered and gathered up her night clothes. She didn't know how she'd manage to get on the t-shirt she slept in but she could tell from John's pretence at sleeping that his responsibility for her well-being was not going to cover dressing her as well.


	10. Chapter 10

"Hey," said the blond man sliding into the seat opposite her.  
Startled, Anna looked up. He removed his sunglasses and grinned at her. He looked like an ageing surfer: his hair was shoulder length and those streaks once bleached by sun were now a silvery grey. His skin was tanned and lined, his eyes curiously dark against his blond hair. Anna knew instantly she'd seen him before but couldn't remember; she knew, though, that he was from the Agency. And here he was, sitting opposite her at her breakfast table, in plain sight.  
"Where are your girlfriends, babe?" he asked. "Still asleep? Sleeping off their hangovers?"  
"Who are you?" she muttered. "What do you want?"She stirred her muesli with a spoon, trying to act as normal as she could.  
" _Mea culpa, mea culpa_ , sweets," he said. He even sounded like a surfer, his voice low and melodious. "We haven't been formally introduced." He tapped his chest. "I'm Evan Farley. Friend of Markus? Met at The Continental, like, about 15 years ago?"  
It rang a vague bell.  
"I was out of the business for a while," he said apologetically, as though he felt bad that she did not know him. "Only recently got back into it. And this is where my first assignment takes me – peachy, eh?"  
He looked around the terrace of the restaurant hotel, overlooking the turquoise pool. Breakfast was served from 6 am onwards and she'd been outside the door at 6.05. Until his arrival, Anna had been the only guest and the place was still empty, save for the bored wait staff and a gardener, who was desultorily sweeping up some leaves. Anna stared at him, spooning honey into her bowl.

"Seriously, dude," she said, "you're going have to tell me what the fuck you want."  
"To kill you? The contract?" he said. He spoke like a teen, his voice rising to make questions where no questions were asked. "You know there's a contract on your head, right?"  
"Really?" she lied, feigning ignorance.  
"Yeah, just went open. It's causing quite the bit of interest because apparently you were supposed to be dead or something, am I right? Coupla people wanna shoot you just for that, you know. Who does that? People were sad you passed, sweetheart."  
"Show me the contract," she demanded. He pressed a few buttons on his phone and slid it over. As Anna reached to pick it up, she felt the barrel of a gun press against her bare knee. He was still smiling at her lazily, leaning a little to his right so he could put his gun against her leg under the table.  
She tried not to gulp aloud and took the phone. It was the same contract the Washington girl had shown her, except now the status was amended to 'open'. She scrolled down. That signature: John Wick. A wave of anger rose inside her and made her want to smash the phone. Instead, she pushed it back.  
He saw her face. "John Wick, yeah. Stone cold, that dude. Stone cold, babe. You deserved so much better."

"How did you know I was here?" she said, ignoring his dig and his use of the past tense.  
" A little bird tipped me off that you were in Puerto," he said. "And I don't know much about how you work but I remember someone telling me that you start your business, like, way early. So I thought it would be worth my while to get up at the crack o' dawn and check out a few hotel restaurants. This is my third hotel, third time lucky."  
Farley pushed the gun against her knee, as if to underline the punchline. Anna tipped another spoon of honey on her muesli and regarded him warily. Despite his beach boy (beach bum?) looks, he was smart. He'd probably learned to play on his surfer dude appearance and palaver to belie the fact that he was actually quite sharp. Watching her, he saw the realisation cross her mind and he grinned.  
"Yeah," he said, nodding. "I'm no dumb chuck, babe."

"So what's your plan?" she said casually as a waiter approached.  
"I'm just here to pick her up," Farley said to the waiter. "Don't need anything, brah."  
The waiter smiled and left; Anna tried not to roll her eyes. _Brah!_ Oh, please.  
"Well, ordinarily, I'da waited till you left the hotel and grabbed you then, but I noticed you took a suitcase down to reception, so I'm guessing you'll be checking out directly after you have broken your fast, right? I hadta work a bit faster than I planned. So you'll just come with me after breakfast and I'll give you a nice clean kill. An honourable death, babe."  
Anna snorted. "Yeah. Um, no, I'm going to pass. Kill me now and be done with it."  
"Nah, not doing that here," he said.  
"Well, I'm not going with you."  
He pushed the gun against her knee. "Death is inevitable, Quinn. _Lucky are those of us who may choose its time._ "  
He sounded like he was quoting something. Probably some Buddhist text. Or _Surfing for Dummies_.  
"Nope," she said. "Don't want to die today, sorry."  
She dribbled another spoon of honey across her muesli. Its surface was a shiny yellow now, barely any flakes could be seen.  
Farley looked flummoxed. "Yeah, well, not your call. Because I will shoot you here but you don't want these nice people to have to clean your insides up, do you? Do the right thing and come with me. It'll be over in a second."

Anna wrinkled her nose and peered into her bowl.  
"Gawd," she cried in disgust. "What is that?"  
She poked at it with her spoon. "Je- _sus_ ," she said. "That's revolting."  
Farley leaned forward to look and she pushed the bowl towards him.  
"What?" he said. Quick as a flash, she jammed the bowl in his face. Sticky honey and muesli flakes covered his beard and one of his eyes.  
"- da fuck?" he shouted and he must have dropped his gun as there was a sharp ping when it went off under the table, the bullet ricocheting off the side of the pool and disappearing in the undergrowth. The gardener looked up. She threw the contents of the little coffee pot at him and he yowled, reaching out to grab her, but she ducked under the table to grab her handbag and his gun and ran, leaving him stumbling, trying to wipe the mess out of his eyes, looking for his gun under the table. She wove through the tables, fishing in her bag for the wad of cash she always kept on her, before racing up to the reception. She threw a thousand dollars on the cash desk.  
"Annika Smith. Four nights, keep the change," she said and pulled her bag off the bellhop's cart beside reception. The receptionist opened her mouth to say something but she was sprinting across the carpet, pulling the bag behind her. Looking over her shoulder, she saw Farley storm into the lobby, wiping his face with a large cloth napkin. When he saw her, he gave chase. And years of being outdoors had made him fast. Under her purse, Anna gripped the gun tightly and waved at a taxi with the other hand; there weren't many people about so early in the morning but there were CCTV cameras everywhere, witnesses and innocent civilians on their way to work, sweeping the streets or waiting for a bus at the stop across the road from the hotel. The cab driver, leaning against his vehicle, stubbed out his cigarette calmly and slowly and loped around to the driver's door as Anna tore across the plaza, her suitcase bumping on the stones.

Farley was sprinting behind her. Not yelling, not shouting, silently sprinting with the speed of a man who was used to running, his face set and determined, his arms close to his chest as his long legs covered ground faster than hers. He slid to a halt just a couple of metres away when Anna pointed her purse at him, showing just the tip of the gun underneath.  
"No," she said. Behind her, the driver opened the trunk of the car and indicated the suitcase by her side, staring curiously at the silent stand-off.  
"You won't shoot me here," Farley said.  
"Watch me," she said.  
Behind her, a taxi pulled in and a couple of tourists got out, pushing politely past, with their bags in hand.  
"You won't dare – " he said and lunged at her, catching her off-guard.  
"Oi!" shouted the cab driver as he carefully wrestled the gun out of her hand, gripping her wrist so tightly she yelped in pain. He stood back, pointed it at her.  
" _Dios mio_ ," the cab driver shrieked. " _Ayuda!_ Help! Help!"  
Anna stepped back, looking behind her for the kerb. As she did another car pulled in and she stepped aside instinctively. Behind Farley, a couple of uniformed security guards were rushing across the plaza, shouting in Spanish and English.  
"Sorry about this," he said. Anna heard a sharp whistle as a bullet flew past and it hit him square in the chest. He looked at her, appalled, before he collapsed in a neat bundle. She turned and saw John Wick in the car behind her.  
"Come vit me iff you vant to liff," he said in his best Schwarzenegger voice.  
"Are you fucking shitting me?" she growled and threw her suitcase in the back and herself on top of it.  
John put his foot to the gas and sped off.  
"Hey," he said in greeting. It was the second time today she'd been addressed like that, and she liked it no better than the first time.  
"Fuck off, John," she snapped.  
He looked at her in the rearview mirror and smiled.


	11. Chapter 11

Anna got out of the car and dusted herself down, then used her sleeve to wipe the door and handle. John looked at her discreetly while he did the same. Her hair was longer than he'd ever seen it before, brushing off her shoulders. And it was darker, with a few blond highlights that had grown out a couple of inches, as though she couldn't quite decide whether she was blond or ... dirty blond? Mouse brown? John wondered if he'd ever actually seen her with her natural hair colour and decided that he probably never had. When they first met, her hair had been a harsh platinum blond that had – along with the other sharper, brasher aspects of her personality and appearance – eventually been smoothed and tamed. She'd finally been talked into having it dyed a more discreet and subtle shade of honey blond, and in the years that followed, she'd tried almost every shade of brown along the spectrum, from chestnut to black.

Anna straightened up, pulling her ancient blue backpack out of the suitcase, the one that contained anything she needed to flee. John nodded and took her hand. They walked away from the car, down the alleyway where they'd parked, at a casual saunter. The car was parked along a busy street, bustling with small shops just starting to open for the day. John had left the keys in the ignition; he was pretty sure the car would be gone by lunchtime. Beside him, he could feel Anna simmer with rage. She was looking straight ahead, trying to not catch his eye but also maintain the pretence of a couple just going for a stroll before breakfast, not a care in the world. John squeezed her hand. Against the odds, he was glad to see her again. She muttered something in response.  
"Sorry?" he said.  
"My _shoes_ ," she enunciated. "I always have to leave behind my new fucking shoes."  
He was relieved; he thought she might be angry about ... well, there were plenty of good reasons for her to be angry.

He hailed a taxi and they jumped in.  
"Airport, please," he said to the driver and turned to Anna. She looked pointedly out the window, so he reached out and took her hand again. She responded by gripping his so hard that the bones moved. He hissed in pain and drew it back. When the driver looked in the rear-view mirror, she smiled at him beatifically, still ignoring John. They drove to the airport in silence and John checked the departure boards. The next flight to the continental US was departing soon, so they hurried to the ticket desk and bought tickets. As was their wont, Anna pretended to weep into a tissue and John grimly explained to the assistant that there had been a death in the family and they needed to leave immediately. With a few clicks, they had first class seats to Orlando and the lady behind the desk had furnished Anna with a new packet of Kleenex. Grabbing their tickets, he pulled Anna behind him and they hurried to the gate.  
"Always works," he said.  
Silence.  
"Anna," he began, "I'm sorry. But I can't get into this with you here. When we get to Florida, we can talk about this but you know..."  
"You don't need to tell me," she said and met his eyes finally. She mustered him up and down. "I know, John. We are working. What did Michael Black use to say? _Can the personal crap till the job is done_ , right? Consider it canned."  
The lady from the check-in desk walked past to her colleagues at the gate and Anna sniffed into her tissue.  
"But you are in deep shit when we get to Florida," she said. "I'm giving you fair warning, Wick."  
And she turned abruptly away to stare out the window.

xxx

John placed his overnight bag on the bed and turned to face Anna. Startled, he realised she was right behind him and before he could open his mouth to say something, she shoved him roughly on the bed, scrambled onto his chest and put her knife to his throat.  
"What the fuck, John?" she growled.  
He whacked the knife out her hand and it skittered across the tiled floor, banging against the floorboards. Anna moved to pounce after it, but he threw her easily on the floor and lunged for the weapon.  
"What the fuck, Anna?" he returned.  
She threw herself at him again but he pushed her easily away; he'd fought her often enough to know her tricks. He knew that, in a worst case scenario, he could just block her till she became so frustrated she'd do something stupid, but he hoped it wouldn't come to that. He was tired, worn out by the morning's excitement, and wanted to close his eyes and get some sleep. Instead he had to grapple with the fury who was seemingly intent on doing him bodily harm.

Anna picked herself up off the floor, her face set in a frown, rubbing an elbow. She seemed to consider attacking him again, then thought the better of it.  
"Seriously, John," she repeated. "What the fuck were you thinking? The contract?" she reminded him when he raised an eyebrow inquiringly.  
 _Shit_ , he thought, _so it was more than just the abandoned shoes_.  
"Yeah," he said, standing up straight. He looked at the knife and tossed it on the bed. "I'm sorry, Annie."  
Her mouth opened and closed as she struggled to form words. "Sorry?" she managed finally. "You're sorry?"  
He shrugged and she mocked him, rolling her shoulders dramatically.  
" _I'm sorry, Annie,_ " she said in an eerie approximation of his voice. "Fuck off, John. You put out a _contract_ on me?"  
He threw his hands up. "It's just ... I know. I know, Anna. It was a mistake, okay? I'm sorry."  
She stared at him, agape. "I need some better explanation than 'it was a mistake', shithead."

He sighed deeply. "It was just ... the whole thing, the whole mess with the High Table was hard, Annie. It took a lot – it took a lot out of me. I didn't want to be involved in all of this; I didn't want you involved either. And it took a lot longer than I expected. So when it was done and I had my exoneration, I waited a bit in case I was still being followed. Finally – finally, I guess I just missed you and I made my way to Seattle. I waited outside the bookstore and then I saw you with that guy ..."

He stopped. He'd waited in a doorway across the busy road, sheltering from the pouring rain beneath a black umbrella. She came out shortly after closing time and turned, her back to him, to lock the door and pull down the shutters. He watched her go up on her toes to reach the shutters and just as he made to move across the road, a large man stepped up beside her and pulled the shutters roughly down. John's hand had flown to his gun, but the man just bent and kissed her on her lips. She'd slapped his chest lightly, jovially, and pulled the hood of her jacket up. They linked arms and left, getting into a car the man had parked at the edge of the street. John followed them home – to the man's house, he presumed, as he'd already checked out the little apartment Anna lived in – and from his car, he saw them dart to the porch, where the man briefly patted down his pockets for his keys, Anna leaning against the doorframe, talking animatedly. When he opened the door, he put a hand in the small of her back and they went inside, shutting the door – and John – behind them.

He had sat in the car, suddenly aware of every ache from every foot and fist and bullet that had rained upon him in the past few months. The broken cheekbone, now healing slowly. The knee that had been savagely kicked; his lower back only now recovering from some brutal blows. And through the lighted window, he saw Anna moving around this strange man's kitchen, gathering ingredients from the fridge and cupboard, which they proceeded to prepare together. John had felt his temper rise like the mercury in a thermometer.  
"Bitch." He felt the breath catch in his throat and thumped the wheel. "Fucking betraying bitch."

He drove back to his hotel room, a beige and brown cell for business travellers, where he took a shower, his heading whirring. When he came out, he picked up his phone, dialled the number of the Agency and let it ring once before angrily pressing the cancel button and throwing it on the bed. He stared at it for a minute or two, trying to banish the image of the light smack, the casual intimacy, until he snatched his phone up and redialled. This time someone answered on the first ring and without thinking it through, he gave his number, then hers and set up the contract.  
"Open or closed?"  
"Closed." He didn't want a free-for-all.  
"Specific agent?"  
"Someone with a lot of experience. Someone good."  
It would need to be someone really good.  
"Fine," the operator said. "The contract will be sent to this number. We will accept an electronic signature or you can fax it back to us. You know the procedure, sir."  
He thanked her and hung up. Almost instantaneously, the phone vibrated and he opened the email, read the contract and went down to the front desk, where the receptionist showed him the printer and fax machine and discreetly left him alone while he used them. He tore the send receipt off the machine and stomped back to his room, yanking the door shut behind him.

John cleared his throat. In front of him, she was pulling at the ends of her hair, watching him angrily.  
"I was angry, Anna. I'm sorry. That's all I can say." He shrugged helplessly, not knowing what more to add.  
"If you fucking shrug one more time, I might box your damn ears."  
Despite her fighting words, her eyes had become a bit glassy and the tip of her nose had reddened, sure signs that she was trying not to cry. She was not one to cry often and she usually tried to hide it by being extra dismissive or defiant.  
"I mean: a _contract_ , John. A fucking contract. After all we've been through, you open a contract on me because you think I have a boyfriend. What kind of fucked up is that? No, don't answer. We've known each other so long, I tend to forget what a sociopath you are."  
She sat on the bed. It had a cotton cover with a quilted pattern and she picked at a thread, unravelling it, her head bowed over her destructive work so he wouldn't see her furiously blinking back tears.  
"I mean," she continued, "Pfeiffer was a two-timing bastard, but at least he had the balls to try to do the job himself. But _you_? You open a fucking contract."  
"I would've never been able to do it myself," he said quietly. "And I was angry, Annie. I just overreacted. I was stupid and I regret it."  
"Coward," she snapped.

He sat down beside her and she didn't raise her head, just moved over a bit as the bed depressed under his weight and furtively wiped her cheek with the tip of her index finger. He resisted the urge to apologise again.  
Instead he said,  
"So who told you?"  
"Told me what?" she mumbled.  
"About the contract?"  
She looked up at him, frowning. "Who _told_ me about it? The fucking professional who showed up in my kitchen one morning, that's who, you twatweasel. Seriously, John. Who the fuck do you think told me about it?"  
He heard a buzzing in his ears. "The professional who showed up in your kitchen?" he repeated. "Why did a professional show up in your kitchen?"  
" _Jesus_ , John!" she shouted. "Have you had a couple too many blows to the brain or what? You opened a contract on me, remember? A side effect of having a contract on your head is the tendency to find fucking agents in your kitchen. Or at the breakfast table of your hotel. Or any other fucking place I might venture, shithead."  
She made a _d'oh_ face at him, smacking her forehead with the heel of her hand.

John stood up and rested a hand on the dressing table.  
"Yeah," he said, "Well, that wasn't my contract. I cancelled mine immediately. I told you, it was a stupid mistake, an overreaction."  
He'd gone back to his hotel room in a haze of rage, the kind of rage that had always made him do bad things, stupid things. In his hand was the send receipt from the fax machine. He read off the number of the Agency again and again, feeling his heartbeat start to slow. Then, sickened to his stomach, he picked up the phone and rang in, rattling off his ID number. He cancelled the contract, agreeing to pay all and any fees already incurred, cancellation with immediate effect. Then he'd hung up, packed his bag and left Seattle. He flew back to New York to settle his affairs and decided to visit Helen's parents before making his next move. As far as he was concerned, Anna Quinn was over. Finished. A chapter in his life with _The End_ written underneath it in bold.

Except, apparently, it wasn't quite that simple.  
"You're sure you cancelled?" she said, watching him root in his pocket for his phone.  
"Yes," he said shortly.  
"You're certain?"  
" _Yes_."  
"Positive?"  
"Anna!" he snapped and she subsided into silence. He dialled the Agency and gave his ID number.  
"I'm sorry, sir," the receptionist said. "That number does not exist."  
He looked over at Anna and pressed the speaker button.  
"Try it again," he said and dictated his ID number and his agent number.  
"I'm sorry, sir," the receptionist said, "but we have no agent listed under this number."  
"This is John Wick," he said. "Someone has been messing with my file; there is simply no way I don't know my own number. I want to speak to whoever is in charge."  
"I'm sorry, sir," she repeated, beginning to sound a little like a broken record. "But if you are on our books, you know that you will have to present yourself in person in order for us to verify your account."  
"There is an open contract in my name," he said "And I did not authorise it." He heard her clicking on her keyboard.  
"I am not at liberty to confirm that, sir," she said but something in her voice told him she had just read through the details. "However, any contracts currently open with our Agency have all been confirmed and signed by the consignees, of this I am absolutely sure. Should you have an issue with this, I would recommend that you appear here in person so we may verify your personal details and close any unwanted contracts."  
"And can you put it on hold till I cancel it in person?" he asked.  
"I'm sorry, sir," she said as Anna made strangling gestures with her hands. "Until such a time, the contract will remain open."  
He pressed a button on his phone and turned to Anna.  
"Don't say you're sorry," she said. "I might kill the next person who says 'I'm sorry'."

She flopped back down on the bed and put her head in her hands.  
"So there's a contract on my head till you get back to New York and go in there to physically rip it up?" she asked wryly. "Yay, me."  
"We'll spend the night here," John said decisively. "We'll take a flight to New York tomorrow and sort this out, I promise."  
She sighed, martyred, but John ignored it.  
"Do you want me to get another room?"  
Anna shook her head. "Nope," she said. "This is your fucking fault. You take first watch while I get some rest."  
"I'm tired, Anna," he said quietly. "I need some sleep."  
He pulled off his t-shirt and kicked off his shoes, dragging back the cover on the bed.  
"Well, I'm not sleeping with you," she said crossly.  
"Yeah, sure," he said, dropping his pants on the floor. "Of course. You wouldn't want to cheat on your boyfriend, right?"  
It was a childish dig but he didn't look around to see how she took it, just rolled into bed and pulled up the cover.  
"Fucker," he heard her say as she left the room.  
He closed his eyes and slept.

x x x

 _Thanks for all the comments, I'm glad you're reading along - it's always great to hear from you!_


	12. Chapter 12

"It was a clerical error," John announced.  
Anna opened the door wider and let him in. He was barefoot and his hair was unkempt; he'd probably been woken from deep sleep.  
"Soon after you ... left, a guy called David Dunbarry rang from the Agency and told me it was just a clerical error. They've been reissuing Agent numbers and there's been some kind of fuck-up with their database. So the cancellation of my contract didn't go through, in fact it seems to have changed its status."  
"Uh-huh," she answered slowly. "And you believe that?"  
"I don't know," he said. "I rang Winston, he confirmed that Dunbarry runs the place now and said they'd been making some changes."  
Anna nodded.  
"In any case, it's all cancelled now. I got a copy of the receipt – look."  
He held out his phone and she read the document displayed on the screen.  
"Looks real enough," she said carefully and handed it back.  
"Yeah, effective immediately. It's all good, Anna."  
They stared at each other in silence, wary.  
"So we're all good, too?" John said, his voice rising on the last word so it sounded like a question.  
"I guess," she answered.  
He turned to leave. "We can have dinner later on if you like – " he started but she cut him off, her hand raised like a traffic cop.  
"This is a farce, John. I think we've got to accept that whatever we thought we had is now officially gone. We missed our moment, man."  
The words slipped out of her mouth before she could snap them back, so fast that she felt breathless. She looked to him, hoping he would contradict her, tell her she was wrong. But John just opened his mouth to say something, and then shut it again. She stared at him, trying to read his face, his dark eyes, but he wouldn't hold her gaze and looked away.

"You're right," he said finally. "You're right, Quinn. Too much has happened, too much water under the bridge. We should just part ways, get on with our lives."  
"Yes," Anna replied. "Like, hug and part as friends, right?"  
She stepped forward and put her arms around his neck, drew him in for a hug. He responded by dipping his head to hers and she breathed in his familiar scent like a drug; his shampoo, his cologne. She rubbed her face against his beard and he pressed her closer, so she could feel his ribs against her breasts, his lower body respond to its proximity to hers. Drawing a deep breath, she slipped her hands between his chest and her own and reluctantly pushed him away.  
"I'm sorry," she said. "Bad idea. Let's not go there 'cause we both know where that leads."  
John rubbed his beard. "Would that be so bad?" he said softly but Anna ignored him.  
She opened the door and gestured at the hotel corridor. "I'll leave immediately, so you don't have to"  
"Are you going back to Seattle?" he asked, pausing in the doorway.  
"Don't know," she said, not meeting his eyes. "I didn't think much beyond finding you and kicking your ass, to be honest."  
He stepped outside the door, hesitated, and said, "If you ever need me, you have my number."  
"Ah, I've always had your number, John Wick," she said in a poor attempt at humour. He smiled weakly and walked away.  
"Good luck, Quinn," he called over his shoulder as she closed the door.

 _xx Six months later xx_

"You've lost weight," Dan's sister Davina complained. She pulled the ties on the dress and it drew in another inch. "You're getting scrawny, Annika."  
"You worried about the wedding night, babe?" her friend Carolyn asked with a wink. She sipped her champagne and glanced over at Muriel, who had already kicked off her shoes and made herself comfortable on the velvet couch of the bridal salon. Muriel grinned and finished her own champagne, leaning over to take another from the side table. Annika's boss was happy to give her time off from the bookstore for dress fittings - as long as she could go, too.  
"Well, now, this is inconvenient," the sales assistant said crossly, removing a pin from her mouth. "I don't normally say this to brides, but could you eat up a little, honey? There just isn't time to have this altered again before the wedding."

Annika looked at herself in the full-length mirror without much pleasure. Her hair had grown longer and she'd stopped dyeing it, so she was back to the dirty blond colour she'd last seen as a teen. She hadn't lost weight on purpose, it just seemed like the closer the wedding came, the harder it was becoming to play the happy bride-to-be. Her wedding dress was a simple shift dress in off-white, the plainest dress she could find in the entire store, and it now hung on her frame like an empty sack. Had it been up to her, she wouldn't have worn a wedding dress at all, but Dan's family had been so appalled by the idea that there was to be a small dinner and not a huge party that she felt she had to at least compromise on the dress.  
"I'm too old and you're too divorced for a poofy white dress," she'd grumbled in private to Dan, who'd managed to wrangle her consent for a big barbecue at his parents' house the day after the wedding. If it had been up to him, they would've had a huge reception with a live band and a sit-down meal for dozens of people  
"I wanna see you in a poofy white dress," Dan teased. "Like a gigantic marshmallow. Like a Barbie doll: Bookstore Barbie Gets Married. How about that?"  
And she'd playfully elbowed him while he laughed his deep chuckle. In the end she'd found a dress that was simple enough to suit her purpose and white enough to suit everyone else's. Dan's mother and his sister Davina acknowledged her choice with a kind of martyred acceptance, instantly discussing ways to make the plain frock look more festive – grandmother's pearls. Some diamanté earrings. Killer heels! Annika pinned a smile to her face and allowed them to dress her like a doll, balling her hands into fists.

The discord between Inside Ann and Outside Annika was growing and showing itself in her skinny arms and bitten nails. And despite the fact that she felt she was fading away, no one seemed to notice it; it was starting to feel like the kind of nightmare where you find yourself screaming but no one can hear. When she returned from Florida to Dan, it had been with a sense of relief, as though she'd been swimming for a long time and her fingertips finally touched the shore. She was relieved to find that she still liked him; she was relieved to feel a warmth around her heart when he enveloped her in a hug – she presumed this meant that she loved him; she didn't know for sure. She'd thought she'd loved Mark Pfeiffer but she had been sorely wrong about that. She'd thought she'd loved John Wick but that seemed to cause her nothing but pain. So maybe this was love, this feeling of security? This feeling that, if she focussed on Dan himself, she might be happy – as long as she didn't think about any of the other stuff, the crap that hung around her thoughts like a hangover and crept into her dreams unbidden. When Dan produced the little red box on the evening of her return, she hesitated a second or two to make certain she knew what she was doing: yes, this was it. This was a conscious decision, choosing a stable, happy life with in a stable, happy relationship. This was healthy. This was right. So she said yes and Dan whooped for joy and pulled her up so they could go phone everyone they knew straight away.

But now, the day before her wedding, Annika felt panicked, short of breath. Despite her insistence on a small wedding dinner with only immediate friends and family ("I don't have a lot of people to invite," she'd pleaded, "so let's just keep the guest list really tiny"), Dan's relatives and his many friends were getting around the lack of dinner invitations by turning up at the house with flowers and cake and presents, good wishes and pretty cards - and stuff for the fridge and freezer for the barbecue the next day. They were going to celebrate the wedding, whether Annika wanted it or not. Dragged along by the festive riptide, she found grinning and bearing it harder and harder. When she returned to the house after the dress fitting, she found an enormous wedding cake on the counter top; she'd stopped in horror but the assembled company – Dan's parents, his aunt Monica, four of his cousins and two old friends from high school – clapped and cheered, mistaking her horror for delight.  
"Surprise!" aunt Monica cried. "I made it for the barbecue so we get some cute photos of you two cutting the cake!"

The grin, now manic, was starting to pain Annika. She murmured something appreciative, admired Monica's fondant flowers and tried to back out of the room.  
"Not just yet," Dan's mother said and gripped her arm. "We've got one more surprise for you!"  
"Oh," Annika said, smiling brightly. "Another surprise? Oh, my."  
"We know you don't have anyone to walk you down the aisle – oh, I know, you're not getting married in a church, but every girl wants her Dad to give her away – "  
Did they? Annika couldn't remember her own father very well; her abiding memory was that he used to give her money to buy him cigarettes and she could keep the change.  
"- so we wanted you to have someone that would be a father figure on your big day," Dan's mom said, leading her towards the living room. Annika felt cold fingers stroke her heart. "So we asked Muriel – "  
"No," she said instinctively and tried to pull away, she looked behind her, trying to see if she could make a run for the kitchen door, but the hallway was crowded with people, all of them dying to see her react to their big surprise. Mrs Parsons looked at her, slightly unsure, then threw open the living room door. "So we asked Muriel if she could invite her brother down for the weekend. I know you worked for him for years and I was sure he would be thrilled to step in and give you away."

Annika gulped as the man on the couch stood up, brushed some imaginary fluff off his jacket, before extending a manicured hand to her.  
"My dear little bird," he said. "My warmest congratulations on your impending nuptials."  
"Thank you, Winston," she replied as the room filled with clapping and laughter.


	13. Chapter 13

"Well, you look ... thin," Winston said.  
"Gee, thanks," Anna replied. They were taking a turn around the garden - that's what Winston called it. Anna was pretty sure the last time she'd heard of someone taking a turn around a garden was in a Jane Austen novel; yet here they were, walking along Dan's flowerbeds, stopping to admire some of the plants in bloom.  
"I could have said _gaunt_ , little bird. Or _haggard_. Or _careworn_ – take your pick. Are you absolutely certain this is what you want?"  
"Yes," she replied firmly.  
Winston bent to rub the leaves of a plant between his fingers. "Is that verbena? I can never be fully sure ..." he said thrusting them under her nose. Anna shrugged. She had little or no interest in gardening.  
"So," he said, straightening up, "you intend to marry this lumberjack – "  
"Carpenter," she corrected.  
"- and spend a lifetime working away in your library – "  
"Bookstore."  
"- surrounded by this enormous tribe of well-meaning, interfering in-laws and his motley crew of friends and acquaintances?"  
"They're really nice people," Anna said weakly.  
"It rains a lot over here," said Winston, wrinkling his nose in distaste.  
"No more than in New York," she replied.  
"But the skyscrapers do a wonderful job of keeping the worst of it at bay."  
Anna grinned. "Yes," she agreed mockingly, "they're like over-sized umbrellas."  
"You will not be able to keep up this pretence forever," Winston said, suddenly earnest. "Now Jonathan did it correctly: he never lied to his wife, he just never told her the truth. He didn't have to worry about forgetting his name or getting his backstory straight, he stuck to the truth closely enough to circumvent any awkwardness."

Anna was silent.  
"Birdie, that was intended as a gracious segue into the subject of Mr Wick. You're supposed to casually say, _'Oh, speaking of John, how is he?'_ "  
"Oh, speaking of John, how is he?" she said mechanically.  
Winston eyed her, a brow raised.  
"Fine, actually. He seems to be doing very well indeed. Busy rebuilding his house - that gives him plenty to do. In fact, I met him at the opera with his new girlfriend a while back."  
He said it lightly, pretending to study the blossoms on the low branches of a tree. It gave Anna enough time to gulp, pull herself together.  
"Yeah?" she said. "Finally found himself someone, has he?"  
"Lovely woman," Winston said. "She works in the architect's office that he's employed to redesign his house."  
"Like that's not awkward," Anna muttered, a touch more bitterly than she intended. She looked up and saw Dan and his mother at the kitchen window. They smiled and waved and she remembered to affix her perpetual grin back in place.  
Winston smiled graciously. "I'm sure he'll be delighted to hear that you are settling down with a wonderful man, successfully suppressing your torrid past and looking bravely forward to the future. Happy days," he said, clasping his hands mockingly.

At the kitchen window, Davina waved and held up a string of pearls, dangling them between her fingers. She pointed at them and at Anna, giving her a thumbs-up and a wave.  
"Oh, Winston," Anna said in sudden despair. "I'm making a huge mistake, aren't I?"  
Winston hummed and hawed. "That's not really for me to say," he said. "As you know, I don't like to interfere in other people's business."  
"You love to interfere in other people's business," she corrected him. "It's practically your hobby."  
"Very well," he said. "If you insist. I have never seen you look as pitiful in your entire life. Not even when that scoundrel Pfeiffer tried to kill you did you look this wretched. I'm sure your lumberjack is a wonderful man, but the strain of pretending to be a Stepford Wife is killing you even now – and you're not even married!"  
"What else can I do?" Anna wailed. "Anna Quinn is dead. Ann Finnerty is dead. Eileen O'Grady is dead. I'm not a cat, I don't have nine lives and I've gone through three already."  
"Leave this behind," Winston said, "And come back to work. You were an excellent agent, you could work for a couple of years and then maybe go private – I hear there's a lot of good work to be had in Saudi Arabia or Russia. The private sector is really booming, plenty of people need bodyguards."  
"But Anna Quinn is dead," she repeated.  
"Miss Quinn, most people figured out you were alive and well as soon as Mr Wick opened a contract on your head. I doubt anyone will bat an eyelid when you stroll into the Continental, strapped, locked, loaded and ready to go."

Anna sighed deeply. It felt like she was inhaling oxygen for the first time for weeks, for months.  
"So we'll just leave tonight?" she said hopefully. "Or will I fake my death? Suicide? I could park my car by the cliffs or ..."  
"No," Winston said, holding up a hand. "You cannot run away from everything, Miss Quinn. I've planned more than my fair share of your funerals, thank you very much. You will go into that nice young man and tell him that you are making a mistake. You will apologise to his family, pack your bags and leave."  
Anna's heart sank. She'd faced many a near-impossible scenario but this one was almost overwhelmingly daunting.  
"Couldn't you just shoot me?" she asked hopefully. "Or run me over? I don't mind a couple of weeks in hospital."  
"Go inside," Winston said firmly, "and get it over with. Rip off the band-aid; it's the right thing to do. Go now, little bird, before someone arrives with a set of turtledoves to be released after your vows or some such nonsense."  
Anna started to trudge towards the house.  
"You could punch me in the face?" she called back.  
"Tempting," he rejoined, "but no. Go do it."

He waited till she went inside, then rubbed the verbena between his fingertips once more. Then he extracted his phone from his pocket and while the number dialled, he breathed in the scent of the leaf.  
"Hello?" the man's deep voice said.  
"She's coming back," Winston replied and hung up.


	14. Chapter 14

"Shouldn't be a problem," Aurelio said and slammed the hood. "Give me a day or two. Okay, a day," he said, seeing John's face. "You can pick her up tomorrow afternoon. Jeez."  
John smiled. "Thanks, Aurelio. I've got a bottle of whiskey with your name on it," he said. "Irish whiskey, picked it up on a stopover in Dublin."  
Aurelio wiped his hands on a rag. John looked well: he was spending a lot of time outdoors, working on his house, so he had a tan and his hair was longer. His beard had more grey in it than before; he'd aged with the drama of the past couple of years. Still, Aurelio had to admit that he looked better than he'd seen him for a while: healthy, quick to smile, relaxed, a stark contrast to his former partner.

"You heard from Quinn?" he said. John glanced around the busy workshop.  
"No," he said quietly. "Not directly. Winston says she's back in the game and doing well, by all accounts."  
"Yeah, well," Aurelio said, managing to say volumes while being annoyingly elliptical.  
"Yeah, well what?" John asked.  
"She's different, man. Something's changed. Cold, or something. You used to be able to have a laugh with her but now? Not so much. Came in here for a car and it was like we were strangers. Silent, dark - ya know, hair all dyed, too much of that black shit on her eyes."  
"You think something's wrong?"  
Aurelio snorted. "Wrong? _Wrong_? Yeah, yeah, I think something's wrong, John. She's taking on all kinds of shit that no one else will touch. You know the Bowery King sent her into Harlem to take out that little punk who called himself the Dark Prince?"  
He laughed into his rag. "Dumbass. Little fucker, preening around with his homeboys, all armed to the teeth, selling drugs and causing trouble. Dark Prince, my ass! So she went in and took him out. And she don't exactly blend in down there, you get me?"  
John nodded. It was none of his business, - not his circus, not his monkeys, - but the hairs stood up on the back of his neck.  
"Yeah, so, everyone's happy out, John, because there's an agent on the scene willing to do all kinds of jobs no one in their right mind will do. But it's only a matter of time before something goes wrong, man. It's like she doesn't care any more, John."  
He stared at John, narrowing his eyes. "Winston is flapping around, tryin' to approach the subject delicately but she told him to fuck off. I done tried, John, but she told me to mind my own fuckin' business. But you – "  
Aurelio leaned against John's Mustang, absent-mindedly polishing it with the cloth. "- she'll listen to you. Just tell her to watch out. Dial it back a notch. No need to go kamikaze on the whole fucking thing, you get me?"  
John shifted awkwardly. "She won't listen to me, Aurelio," he said. "She really won't. And I'm out of the business now, I don't want to get back in. You know what I sacrificed to get out of that whole damn mess, I want nothing to do with anything or anyone from that time."  
"And yet here you are with me," Aurelio said slyly. "Can't seem to get away from it completely, can you?"  
He grinned. "You're the best mechanic I know, Aurelio," he said.  
The other man shrugged. "Ain't that the truth," he replied.

John made sure the gun was still under his bed. He was sleeping in a trailer home on the site of his house during the construction phase, something he'd kind of enjoyed. It was old and rickety but he'd only intended to use it for a couple of months, so he hadn't minded the occasional leak or creak. He liked being on site to supervise the construction team; he'd thought about selling the remains of his property and moving on, but he liked the location and saw no real reason to move. Instead, he found the opportunity to be involved in the design and building of his own house very interesting; he read up on passive houses, went to a couple of lectures about eco buildings at a university in the city and then found an architect's office willing to work with him on his vision. It was progressing slowly but surely, and John was finding it thrilling to get up in the morning and do some hard physical work. Every evening he went to bed exhausted, even falling asleep on the evenings he went to visit Clara, his girlfriend.

 _Girlfriend_. The word stuck in his throat, he couldn't bring himself to say it, even though it was truer of her than it had been of Anna. Clara was actually a girl – no, a woman, of course, but at his age everyone under thirty looked inexorably young. She was in her late twenties, and being with her made him feel light-hearted, carefree. She was temping at his architect's office but she wanted to travel; she wanted to spend six months in India before she turned thirty next year. John had laughed at the idea at first, but as the summer months peaked and he began to face the prospect of another winter on the Atlantic coast, the idea of six months in India began to seem quite tempting. Clara had invited him along, warning him that he was not to cramp her style – she was all about her freedom, she'd insisted, no man was going to tie her down – but John got the message that she wouldn't be averse to their travelling together.

And it would mean that he would be somewhere where he didn't have to check under his bed every night to make sure his gun was still loaded; he wouldn't wake at every rustle or at the sound of a car passing on the road. It was very tempting. As he lay in the sagging bed, his toes touching the end of the bed frame, he looked at the ceiling and thought about India; the heat, the colours, the noise, the people. The freedom. He closed his eyes for another night of fitful sleep.

xxx

He woke.  
His phone was vibrating furiously on the dressing table jammed at the end of the tiny room. Strange, John thought. He usually put it on the night stand; had he left it there when he changed for bed? The light of the phone lit up the room, casting shadows on the walls. He squinted, trying to get his eyes to adjust to the darkness.

For the second time that time, he felt the hairs stand up on the back of his neck. He tried not to jerk up, to make any quick movements but, feigning sleep, he slid a hand out from under the covers and touched the floor beneath the bed. Nothing. His fingertips searched desperately. Where was his gun? Shitshitshitshitshit.  
"Looking for this?" a voice said and flicked the light switch. The naked bulb lit up and he shielded his eyes with his hands. Anna Quinn was standing at the end of his bed, his gun in her hand and a sneer on her face.  
"Quinn?" he said, sitting up in bed.  
"Wick?" she mimicked.  
"How did you get in here?" he asked. He thought he'd been sure to deadbolt everything.  
"You're a bit paranoid, John, this trailer is like fucking Fort Knox," she replied, not answering his question.  
"Why are you here?" he asked.  
"To kill you, shithead," she said.  
"Is there a contract on me?" He thought frantically – that was one of the conditions he'd brokered; no contracts, no agents. Not that he'd trusted the paper it'd been written on or the blood that had sealed it ... but still.  
"No, John," she enunciated. "There is a contract on me."  
He looked at her, not understanding. She tapped her chest with her free hand. "You fucking did it again. Clerical error? Fuck you." She cocked the gun. "Anyway, enough of this shit. Don't wanna be the James Bond villain who spends half an hour lecturing Sean Connery on his motives."  
John's phone rang again, buzzing like an angry hornet, turning in a circle on its own vibration. Anna raised the gun and her own phone started to vibrate.  
"Fuck's sake!" she said and whipped it out of her pocket. "Aurelio? Yes. I know. Winston called me when it opened half an hour ago. Yes, I have Wick right here."  
She waved the gun at him and John raised his arms.  
"I didn't open the contract!" he shouted, hoping Aurelio would hear him. "I swear, I didn't open the contract!"  
He heard some frantic squawks from Anna's phone as Aurelio tried to answer him. Anna pressed the speaker button and put her phone down as Aurelio tried to wheedle with her not to do it.  
"Anna, please," he said quietly, but she was looking at him in that odd way of hers, head cocked to one side, trying to read him, assess him.  
His phone was silent for a second or two, then it started again.  
"He's done it before, Auri," she called out to her phone. "He got cold feet the last time but now he's got his little Barbie doll girlfriend and a brand new house, he must be getting his shit straightened out."  
"No, no, Anna, I think you're wrong," Aurelio's tinny voice came through the phone speakers, his panic plain to hear. John knelt on the bed, moving closer. She raised a finger to tell him to stay put.  
John's phone rang again, continued to vibrate, its noise jarringly loud in the tiny room. Angrily, she picked it up.  
"Hold on, Auri," she said looking at the name displayed, "Winston on the other line," and she swiped her finger across the screen of John's phone, pressed the speaker button and threw it on the bed beside her own.

"Jonathan," Winston said breathlessly, "What on earth? A contract on Miss Quinn – again? You know she will find you and this time she will kill you?"  
"I've found him," Anna called into the phone. "And I will kill him. Any last words? Make them quick."  
There was silence from both phones.  
"Anna," John said quickly, "just hear me out. Please."  
She said nothing, just continued to stare at him.  
"What if it's not me?" he said. "And for the record, it's not. You know in your heart of hearts I would never do this. But if it's not me, then have you thought about who wants you dead?"  
She watched him. "Lots of people want me dead," she said with a mirthless smile.  
"Yeah, so the other question is who wants _me_ dead?"  
"Oh, yes, let's make this about you."  
He held up a hand placatingly. "The first time? Sure, might have been a mistake. Might've been a clerical error. But the terms of the contract were extended when it went open and the premium went up – so, yeah, it may've been the case that one of the Agency secretaries clicked a wrong button, but I think someone used the opportunity to expand an existing contract and that's more than just a misclick."  
"I know," she said. "I always knew someone was lying about that."  
"Right?" he said eagerly. "Because anyone who knows you also knows the first thing you would do is come looking for me. And kill me."  
He tried not to gulp as he said it. He'd moved closer to the end of the bed, still on his knees, his hands in the air.  
"This is the second attempt, same procedure as last time. They know you'll be less inclined to believe me now, but whoever it is can't go after me directly, so they're using you. Either you kill me or I kill you or we both kill each other. I've got the feeling that they're not that bothered about the outcome either way – main thing is, someone gets it."  
He put out a hand, his palm upright in front of the barrel of her gun.  
"So the real question is, who wants us both dead?" Anna said. The gun clicked.  
John nodded. "Please don't kill me, Anna," he said softly. "Please don't."  
Slowly, she lowered her gun.  
"Two strikes, John," she said. "Consider this your official warning. If your damn phone hadn't gone off you'd be dead in your bed already."

"Fuck me, you guys," Aurelio's tinny voice rose from the phone on the bed. "You don't do this to me again, you hear?"  
"I have aged ten years," Winston delared. "Ten years!"  
Anna swooped up her phone, said, "Bye!" into the mouthpiece and turned it off.  
"Cancel the contract," she said curtly to John. "It's in your name, so cancel it. Like, now."  
Obediently he took the phone and dialled the Agency.  
"What are you doing?" he said as she unbuttoned her jeans.  
She looked at him, astonished. "Going to bed," she said. "It's after three in the morning. You don't expect me to drive back to the city, do you?"  
She crawled down the bed and under the blankets.  
"I want to cancel a contract," John said into the phone, as she wrapped herself in his quilt. "My name is John Wick and my number is – "  
All he could see was the top of her head. He cancelled the contract and told them to have the paperwork sent over by courier first thing in the morning so he could search for clues about the issuer. When the conversation was finished, he picked up the gun Anna had laid on the dressing table and replaced it under the bed. She was fast asleep when he pulled over the cover. 


	15. Chapter 15

She woke when, in her sleep, she felt the bed depress and tip. When she opened her eyes, she discovered John sitting beside her, a mug of steaming coffee in his hands.  
"Did I sleep in?" she asked. "What time is it?"  
"After seven," he said. "I've been up a while."  
"I slept in," Anna replied in wonder. "Must be losing my touch. Is that for me?" she asked as he handed her the mug. She sipped it cautiously. It was hot and bitter.  
"What is it not?" John asked.  
"Sorry?"  
"What is it not?" he repeated.  
"I don't understand. What is it not? What do you mean, what is it not?"  
John gently took the cup out of her hands and put it down beside her bed,  
"It's not a knife, it's not a gun," he said, counting off his fingers. "It's not a blunt object of any kind, it's not a tie or wire, nor is it poisoned."  
She looked at him, confused.  
"And it's not my bare hands," he said and, quick as a spark, wrapped them around her throat and pushed her back onto the pillow. Her eyes widen and her hands flew to his, as she struggled to free herself. He held her down. Anna felt his muscles move beneath her thrashing and he held her still. She began to fight for breath, tears pricked her eyes -  
and he let her go.

"What the fuck, John?" she shrieked. "What the _fuck_?"  
"If I wanted you dead, Ms Quinn, you would be long dead," he said. "That's the point. And if you really thought I was any threat to you, you wouldn't have spent the night uninvited in my bed, because this is what you would've woken up to. You think I'd put a contract out on you? Why bother when I would do it more quickly and efficiently and, above all, _cheaply_ with my own bare hands?"  
He took the coffee off the nightstand and gave it back to her. She took it with shaking hands.  
"Now, don't fucking doubt my word again," he said, standing up.  
He left the little room in two strides and banged the door so hard, that the entire trailer seemed to wobble.

Anna got dressed and squeezed out past the end of the bed into the trailer's living area. He was sitting at the tiny table, warming his fingers on a mug of coffee. She refilled hers from the pot and sat opposite, making sure their knees didn't make contact when she slid into the seat.  
"We're going into the city to the Agency," he said evenly, as though their little _contretemps_ had not just happened. "I want to find out what happened and I want you to be with me when I do."  
"Sure," she said.  
He looked her over and she returned his frank assessment. He still had a bit of the tan he'd acquired in Puerto Rico – or maybe he'd just been out in the fresh air more often since coming home. For once in his life, he looked less ... slick. The John she'd once worked with had worn expensive suits and handmade shoes, bespoke shirts and silk ties. This John was wearing a suit shirt and pants all right, but his hair was unkempt and his beard untrimmed. His nails weren't manicured, just trimmed to the quick, the skin of his hands rough and reddened. He looked like he hadn't worn a suit for quite some time. But it suited him, she thought. He looked outdoorsy and ... healthy.

Unfortunately, she didn't fare as well in his appraisal.  
"You need to do something with your hair," he said shortly.  
She pulled down a lock of her hair, raven black.  
"You're too old to pull off the goth thing," he said. "You look like a vampire."  
"Gee, thanks," she replied sarcastically.  
"Seriously," he said. "And that gunk on your eyes? Tone it down."  
She spluttered in outrage. "Fuck you, Wick!"  
He shrugged. "Feel free to look in the mirror," he said. "Your eye make-up is everywhere. You look like a drunk panda." And he pulled out his phone and started to scroll down the screen, effectively ending their conversation.

Shaking her head in annoyance, she drank her coffee, then pushed past him, not trying to avoid contact this time but using the excuse of the narrow space to brush against him roughly. In the bathroom – could it be called a bathroom? It had barely enough spaced for a shower cubicle, a toilet and a small sink – she looked into the mirror and shuddered. He was right, loath and all though she was to admit it: the jet black hair made her skin look even paler, made her look older. Under the harsh light of the naked bulb, she saw every spot and wrinkle. And her eye make-up had smeared and run – John was right: she did look like a drunk panda. She pressed the soap dispenser and lathered up some bubbles to wash her face. So what if she was a bit heavy on the eyeliner? It made her feel tough, it made her feel undefeatable. It was like a mask she put on every time she left her apartment, her gun strapped beneath her jacket. As she washed, a stream of black ran into the wash basin and she ran the faucet to wash it away. Then she reached out for one of John's pristine towels and wiped her face with it, leaving streaks of inky black on the soft white cotton. She tossed the used towel in the cloth back he was apparently using as a laundry hamper and went back outside.

He had put his jacket on and was putting his gun in the holster. He looked up when she came out and said, "That's better. You ready?"  
Anna nodded in response and went out the door, standing by the steps while he locked it behind him. She yawned and stretched, breathing in the crisp early morning air, before a movement caught her eye. Coming up the avenue towards them was a young woman, bearing a cup of coffee in either hand and the corner of a paper bag from a bakery wedged between the ring and little finger of her left hand, a constellation so precarious that she almost dropped her load when she saw Anna half-hidden behind John's tall frame.  
"Wick," Anna hissed. "John, it's your girlfriend."  
He froze for a second and cursed under his breath, then turned to greet her with a smile.  
"John?" she said, her voice wobbly. "Who is this?"  
"This is a colleague," he said. "She came by to pick me up. We have business downtown this morning."  
"She came by at 7.40 in the morning? Out _here_?" she said, tipping a coffee sideways to look at her watch. "Like, for real?"  
"For real," he said softly, approaching her. He bent to kiss her cheek and relieve her of a coffee cup. "Isn't that right, Anna?"  
He shot her a warning glance. Anna smiled, pulling her lips across her teeth in a way she hoped showed more warmth and sincerity than she felt.  
"Yeah," she said. "We have an early meeting. We need to discuss our strategy on the way."  
The young woman looked at them, from one to another, then said, "Okay. I guess my decision to surprise you with breakfast kinda backfired."  
She made a poor attempt at a grin.  
"Can we postpone it till the weekend?" John asked, bending his head to hers.  
Anna looked away. Once he'd been that tender to her; once he'd slipped into her personal space with that kind of intimacy and ease. She stared at the half-built house behind them, pretending not to see the two, deliberately not trying to hear their murmured conversation.  
"I'll call you later, then," John said and his girlfriend turned and went back the way she came. They waited in silence for a minute or two till they heard her car start at the end of his avenue, then walked towards John's car.

"She seems nice," Anna said conversationally.  
"She _is_ nice," he returned.  
"Young, though," she said.  
He shrugged. "I guess."  
There was silence as he started the car.  
"Does she have Daddy issues, do you think?"  
"Anna," he growled.  
"Just wondering," she said. She settled back into the seat, then leaned forward to turn on the radio, pressing the buttons.  
"Don't touch," he snapped and pushed her hand away.  
"Yes, Daddy," she said mock-meekly and turned to smirk out the window. His silence was icy.  
She didn't want him to see how despondent she felt inside.


	16. Chapter 16

Mr Charon watched them approach the desk but his calm expression betrayed nothing.  
"A pleasure to see you two again," he said.  
John smiled stiffly.  
"For one night or for two?" he said, glancing from one to the other.  
"One," they replied in unison. He tapped his keyboard, slid a key across the desk.  
John raised an eyebrow but Charon looked at him blankly.  
"We'll require two keys," he said softly.  
Anna had never seen Charon flustered before, but this certainly rattled his composure.  
"Of course," he said quickly. "My apologies. Ninth floor, Madam," he added, passing Anna a key. "I will have your bag retrieved from storage and brought up immediately. And you, Mr Wick, room 818."  
He watched them walk away, his face having returned its habitually blank composure.  
"Meet you in the lobby in thirty minutes," John said, punching the elevator button. "Can you manage that?"  
"Sure," she said shortly, walking ahead of him when the doors pinged. They stood side by side in silence till the elevator opened on the eighth floor, then he walked out without a backward glance.

Anna was waiting for him when he came down. She was sitting at a small table, flicking through one of the glossy magazines that Winston kept artfully scattered on the occasional tables. As he approached, he saw a man at a neighbouring table adjust his tie, tug his jacket, readying himself to speak to her. He looked up when he heard John's steps and drew back, pretending to answer his phone. She raised her head and he saw that she'd toned down the heavy eyeliner, but her lips and nails were painted a dark red, which – together with her black hair – made her pale skin seem almost translucent. She was thinner than he knew her and she looked almost fragile, like a statue of some martyred saint in The Continental's church-like lobby. Something always stirred inside him when he caught sight of her without her knowing. It made him see her with other eyes, as a stranger would see her: her quick, clever face. The shock of dark hair, the slim leg that tapped silently, unable to be still. Her pale skin, down her neck to her -

"Ready?" she asked, standing up. He nodded, looked away as she grabbed her bag, and followed her outside to the waiting car.  
"I can drive," she said, as he walked around to the driver's side.  
"I know," he said. "Doesn't mean you should, though."  
She sighed and got in beside him. He drove them as quickly as he could through the busy streets, pulling swiftly in to the entrance of the Agency's underground garage. John rolled down the window and tossed a gold coin into the hat of the beggar sitting outside and he reached behind, pressing some button or pulling some lever that opened the door. The beggar silently accompanied them to the elevator and punched in a code, sending them off with a silent wave before returning to his post.

The Agency was as John remembered it, the same stuffy smell, the telex machines, the row of women working the switchboards. Back when he and Anna started out, the atmosphere had been more relaxed, almost like walking into a clubhouse. They'd hung around in the staff kitchen waiting for an assignment – any assignment - drinking coffee with the younger receptionists and getting a telling-off from the older ones, who called them children and said they'd be sure to keep them off the alert list if anything came in – how could they send two innocents like the lanky boy and the nervy girl out to do grown-ups' work? Now things were more serious, more professional. John doubted that any of them hung around chatting over their weak coffee in the staff's tiny kitchen.

"Mr Wick?" said a voice. He turned and came face to face with a man as tall as he was. But this man was almost as round as a barrel, something that was easy to overlook as he was dressed in an exquisitely tailored suit.  
"We've spoken on the phone. Haruto Fukasatu."  
John extended his hand. Fukasatu had the look of a retired sumo wrestler; though he was softly-spoken, John didn't doubt that he was someone to be reckoned with. As soon as Fukasatu had taken over management of The Agency a decade previously, he had ruthlessly updated its procedures, trimming it down from a home away from home for idle agents to a place where contracts were swiftly dispatched and payment uncompromisingly collected, a well-oiled machine that buzzed with the clack of typewriters and the rattling of fax machines.  
"And this is-?" the Japanese man asked politely.  
"Anna Quinn," she supplied.  
He looked at her sharply, scrutinising her dark hair.  
"We need to update your file picture," he remarked. Smiling, he said, "If you would be so kind, I would ask you to join me in my office, please."

"So," Fukasatu said, shuffling some papers, "Mr Wick, you have come to cancel a contract on Miss Quinn and you have brought Miss Quinn to drive home this cancellation."  
"Yes," John answered simply.  
"Hmm. This case, it's a little unusual, I'm afraid."  
"What do you mean?" John asked, leaning forward.  
The first contract," Fukasatu said, consulting his notes, "was an unfortunate error on our part, a glitch when we transferred our files to a new software system – "  
"Was anyone else affected?" Anna wanted to know.  
Fukasatu hesitated. "No, actually, you were the only one. The contract was accidentally activated."  
"Interesting," she said sarcastically. "And the last contract? Was it _accidentally activated_ again?"  
She made air quotes, her fingers slicing the air viciously.  
"Well," Fukasatu said, brightening a little, "That's where things get really interesting. This contract was called in by John Wick on three nights ago, confirmed biometrically and the deposit lodged from an account in Switzerland."  
" Confirmed biometrically?" John echoed.  
"That means that once it was lodged, a fingerprint scan confirmed the contract and it was given the green light."  
"But I didn't open any contracts," he said, feeling suddenly queasy.  
Fukasatu stared at him, a pleasant smile on his lips.  
"It was confirmed biometrically," he repeated.  
"Basically, what you're saying is that it had to be John," Anna said.  
"Yes."  
"Maybe your software was hacked?" John suggested.  
The Agency manager shook his head firmly. "No," he said. "Impossible. Absolutely impossible."  
"Nothing's impossible," said the man opposite him.  
"Well, this is. This software is at the cutting edge of encryption technology."  
John began to feel irritated, desperate. Anna had turned to stare at him, her blues lasering into him. He knew she was armed, as was he, but he didn't trust her not to pull a gun on him again. The next time she wouldn't be distracted.  
"I didn't call the contract," he said, lowering his voice so it wouldn't belie his slight panic. "I insist you check the possibility of a hacking, either at The Agency itself or by the company that installed the system."  
"Mr Wick," said the manager, "it is more likely that you suffered a bout of amnesia or called in this contract on drugs than that someone hacked our system. I'm being honest with you, even though you don't want to hear it. Now maybe it is time for you to be honest with us."  
He continued to smile the same calm smile. "I'm telling you," Fukasatu said, "it was biometrically confirmed."  
John stood up, his hand hovered over his belt, ready to pull his gun. "Check for hacking," he said in a low voice. "Call whoever the fuck you think needs to be called, but get some techie or nerd or geek in here check your fucking system."  
Fukasatu stood up behind his desk and raised a hand. In the other he held a gun.  
"Mr Wick," he said with a genial smile, "I would advise against it."

Anna stood up and Mr Fukasatu pointed the gun briefly at her to send a signal. She raised both arms, leaned over to John and pulled his hand down.  
"Open another contract, John," she said. She looked up at him, her hand open against his ribs, fingers splayed like a starfish so he could feel the warmth of her skin against his chest. "Open another contract on me so we can see what happens."  
Both men realised she was right. He nodded in apology at Fukasatu, who'd already put his gun away, as though he'd never had it in his hand. Gallantly, he opened the door of his office and escorted them to the front desk, where he called over one of the receptionists from her typewriter.  
"Mr Wick wishes to open a contract," Mr Fukasatu said.  
The receptionist sat at the computer at the front desk.  
"Recipient?" she asked.  
"Anna Quinn," he said. The woman at the computer glanced up, looked at Anna, then obediently typed in her name.  
"Open or closed?"  
"Open."  
"Denomination?"  
"One hundred thousand."  
Anna snorted.  
"Verification?"  
John gave his number and the receptionist placed a small electronic pad on the desk.  
"Fingerprint scan," she said. "We do it for everyone," she added, glancing up at her boss, who nodded proudly.  
John placed his finger on the pad. The computer beeped.  
"I'm sorry," the receptionist said. "There was a problem reading your print. Can you reposition your finger?"  
John did, pressing it down carefully. Mr Fukasatu watched, his smile replaced by a worried frown.  
The computer beeped again.  
"Your middle finger maybe?" the receptionist asked helpfully. "Or the index finger on the other hand?"

John tried both. Then Anna leaned in and pulled the touchpad over.  
"Try mine," she said, and the receptionist pressed a couple of keys. The computer beeped reproachfully again. She gave the little gadget back to the receptionist and turned to the two men.  
"Yeah," Anna said, shrugging casually. "I'd say that pretty much means that you've been hacked, Mr Fukasatu."


	17. Chapter 17

"Good night," John said, holding the elevator door open.  
"G'night," she answered. "You staying in tonight?"  
"I want to talk to Winston," he said. "If that's all right."  
Anna shrugged. "Why wouldn't it be?"  
"I just thought ... I just thought you might like to be there," he said hesitantly.  
"I'll talk to him tomorrow morning," she said. "And he'll tell me everything."  
She let it hang there between them. Winston was fond of John, but fonder of Anna. She knew he wouldn't hesitate to tell her anything pertinent John might say.  
"Yeah," John said. He smiled wryly. "Good night, then."  
She smiled at him, walking away as the elevator doors closed.

Anna surveyed the room. It overlooked the busy street below. Barely daring to look down – she hated heights, always had – she pulled the heavy curtains to block out the lights from the building opposite and ran her hand along the smooth silky bedclothes. Winston was in the process of redecorating and this was her first time to sleep in one of his newly-styled rooms. The bedclothes were anthracite grey, the wooden shelves had been replaced by black glass, upon which there was a bottle of brandy, whiskey and vodka, with two heavy crystal glasses. She nodded her head as she looked around. Except for the mustard-coloured throw pillows, there was nothing in this room that revealed anything of Winston's oft-times flamboyant personality. He was the ultimate hotelier: his rooms reflected the sombre tastes of his guests and not his own.

She took a long, luxurious bath, then wrapped herself in one of the black bathrobes that hung by the door. Like everything else in the room, they were more suited to a male guest – it brushed against her ankles when she walked. She rooted around in the overnight bag that one of the porters had left in her room. Anna always kept a bag at The Continental, though the last time she'd had cause to have it fetched was when she was working with John. She smiled as she pulled some of the things out of the bag: a couple of tops she thought were really cute when she was in her twenties. A little black dress made of a stretchy jersey material that could be balled up in the bottom of any bag and made presentable by a good shaking. She delved deeper and found a pair of cotton pants and an old t-shirt that she could sleep in. She pulled it out and held it up: it was a man's t-shirt. She held it to her nose and breathed in, smelling the faint trace of John's cologne. Not knowing how it had gotten in there – though she suspected she'd probably stolen it at some point and kept it for herself – she stripped off her shirt and bra and pulled it over her head.

With her jeans and underwear in a ball on the floor, she grabbed the cotton pants and put them on and then, sighing contentedly, flopped on the bed, flipping through TV channels as she flicked through the room service menu. Her stomach growled at the thought of a club sandwich and an ice-cold cola and as she reached for the phone to give her order, she found an old Tom Cruise action film that she hadn't seen before.  
"Perfect," she thought, putting the phone down. Ten minutes from now, she'd be tucking into a BLT and watching Tom Cruise battling aliens. What had been a shitty day was shaping up into an excellent evening. She stretched contentedly and wriggled her toes, wondering if she had a nail polish in her vanity bag to give them a coat of colour.

There was a knock on the door and, anticipating her supper, she skipped to open it.  
John Wick was standing in the doorway. Wearing a dark-grey suit, dark-grey shirt and tie, he'd slicked back his hair and made an attempt to trim his beard.  
"Can I come in?" he said, then did a double-take. "Is that my t-shirt?"  
Anna sighed and held the door open.  
"What do you want, Johnny?" she asked.  
He looked around her room. "Like the new look," he said. "Very minimalist. My room hasn't been done yet. Stinks of favouritism on Charon's part, don't you think?"  
Inwardly, she rolled her eyes. Small-talking John meant that he was working up to something.  
"Yeah, just don't lie down on the bed," she said, indicating the grey covers. "You'll blend in and be invisible."  
He chuckled, brushing his fingers against the foot-board of the bed.  
"What do you want?" she repeated.  
"I'm going down to the bar to see Winston," he said. "And I'd like you to come with me."  
She rubbed her forehead with her fingertips. "Tempting, but no," she said sardonically. "I have a date with Tom Cruise and a sandwich."  
John glanced at the TV, where Tom was battling through a series of explosions.  
"You really have to come," he said quietly. He picked up the remote control and switched the television off.  
"Hey!" Anna said angrily and tried to grab it back, but he held it over his head, out of her reach.  
"Listen," he said, "it's important that people see us together. And not just together, but you know, _together_ together. Friends. Everyone in this hotel thinks I put a contract on your head and it'll make it easier for them to understand, to believe, that it was a mistake if they see that there's no bad blood between us."

There was a rap on the door. This time it really was her sandwich. She paid in cash with a generous tip and took the tray inside.  
"No," she said shortly, biting the bread. It was delicious.  
John watched her eating. " _Anna_ ," he said.  
It was his Serious Voice. That's what she called it in her head, capitalised for gravity. It was the voice he always used when he tried to talk her down off her high horse, away from grandiose plans that were patently untenable and wildly perilous. His killjoy voice.  
" _John_ ," she said in the same tone, mocking him. "I'm eating my sandwich. I'm in sweatpants and my bra is on the floor. You mightn't be familiar with this kind of womanly signal, but it basically means that that's me done for the night."  
He walked around to the other side of the bed, picked her bra up between his index finger and thumb and draped it on her head.  
"Anna," he said, "this is important. Eat your sandwich, put on your bra and enough clothes not to get you arrested. We need to make an appearance together and it would be in your best interests to pretend you're happy about it."  
She chewed defiantly and thought about it, concluding reluctantly that he was right.  
"Fine," she said, "but I want to finish my sandwich."  
He waited while she wolfed it down, then, to his chagrin, she whipped off his old t-shirt and without bothering to make a show of modesty, put her bra back on.  
"Sorry, girls," she said to her breasts, "we have to go back to work, I'm afraid."  
John rolled his eyes and looked elsewhere.

xx

"Well," Winston said, taking off his glasses. "That sounds like rather shoddy work to me. I can't imagine how the Agency software could possibly be hacked. Did you speak to Dubarry?"  
"No," John said, "Just to Fukasatu. Dubarry owns the place, I know, but Fukasatu's the day-to-day manager, right?"  
He was flustered. Anna was beside him, pressed against him, her hand brushing invisible lint from his shoulder. When he turned to her, she smiled at him beatifically.  
"That's right," Winston said, looking from one to another. He was a little confused by what was going on, Anna could see. No doubt Mr Charon had filled him in on their exchange at the front desk. She slid her hand under John's jacket and across the silk of his shirt. His stomach muscles tensed but he made no move to pull away, enduring her light touch without a word.  
"You need to talk to Dubarry," Winston said. "He owns the place now and he'll want to – what in all the heavens, Miss Quinn?" he cried, as John started. Anna's hand had run over his thigh and he couldn't take it any more. Reflexively, he'd jumped, shaking the table and Winston's drink.  
The two men glared at her.  
She shrugged. "We're trying to show everyone that we're _friends_ ," she whispered theatrically and grinned, fixing John with an adoring expression.

John cleared his throat, pulled at his tie.  
"I asked her to behave in a friendly manner," he said gruffly to Winston. "And this is what I get."  
"Even when we were friends, no one would've known it by the way we behaved," she said. "I thought I'd ramp it up a notch. So there'd be no misunderstandings, see?"  
Winston shook his head despairingly.  
"This, my little bird, is the very reason why people want to _kill_ you," he pronounced, which only made her laugh, throwing her head back and tossing her too-dark hair. People at nearby tables looked over; many of the men looked at her admiringly before returning to their drinks and their company.  
"Well," he concluded, "I will call in some favours and see who might be behind this. Dubarry might have some insights. In the meantime it would appear beneficial to you both to stay within reach of each other, just in case another contract mysteriously opens on either of your heads."  
He stood up. "Please finish your drinks," he said. "But I must move on. I have a lot of people to speak to tonight."  
He smiled as John raised his glass, then leaned over to rap Anna on the knuckles with his glasses.  
"Behave yourself, Miss Quinn."  
She grinned up at him and returned her hand to its place on John's thigh.

"This really freaks you out, doesn't it?" she asked, smirking at his discomfort.  
He looked across the room and took a sip of his bourbon.  
"Yup," he answered shortly. "Glad I amuse you, Quinn. Don't think I don't know you're only playing with me. Though, God knows, I should be used to it by now."  
" _Hark_ ," Anna whispered dramatically. "Is that the sound of ... the world's smallest violin?"  
He drank again.  
"Honestly," she said in a low voice, "get over yourself, Wick. You left me. _You_ left _me_."  
She didn't like the tremor in her voice, so she grabbed her glass and took a sip, smiling as one of the waitresses passed, pretending everything was okay.  
"I thought it was for the best," he said, his voice hoarse.  
"Well, it wasn't," she snapped.  
"Anna – " he began hopelessly, but she stood up, frowning. A couple of men at the next table looked up, sensing the change in atmosphere, but she adjusted her expression to pin a smile on her face, waving her fingers at them as she turned and left.  
John sighed, abandoned his drink and followed her through the swaying couples, past the jazz band. Passing the bar, she suddenly stretched a hand out behind her and grabbed his. Without looking back, she pulled him gently through the throng and towards the exit, still a step or two ahead of him. He passed a guy he knew who nodded at him knowingly, winking at Anna's back.  
"Lucky guy," he mouthed and John nodded dumbly. Winston caught his eye and frowned; John gave a tiny shrug in return. Anna led him to the door, waving at people she knew as she left.

She pulled him through the kitchen, up the stairs, across the lobby, stood at the elevator with her back to him, his hand firmly between hers.  
"Quinn," he began.  
"Shut up," she answered as the elevator pinged. She pulled him inside and pushed him up against the wall, grabbing his chin to pull his mouth down to hers. She kissed him hard, her hands once again rubbed up and down the silk shirt, and she arched into him when she felt him respond.  
"Anna - " he started again.  
"For fuck's sake, John," she said. "Can you please just fucking _shut up_?"  
And she kissed him again.

He wasn't quite sure how they got to her hotel room door. His tie was off, the top three buttons of his shirt were undone. She reached down and with one motion, pulled her dress over her head, standing before him in her underwear.  
"Off," she said, indicating his clothes.  
He shed his jacket, his pants. She unbuttoned the rest of his shirt, struggled with his cufflinks before giving up. She lay on the bed and watched him till he was naked, sliding up the covers beside her. She pushed him gently away and rolled over to switch off the bedside lamp. The room was plunged into darkness.  
"Hey," he said, "no fair."  
"The light's too harsh," she said. "I feel like I'm in a KGB interrogation room."  
John grinned. "Don't tell Winston that his new lights look like something from a KGB interrogation room," he said, "That'd kill him."  
Anna laughed and rolled off the bed. "I'll open the curtains," she said. "We can enjoy the ambient light pollution of the Big Apple."  
He laughed and watched her pull the curtains back. She stood at the window, silhouetted by the street lights, her skin momentarily flashing blue and white as an ambulance passed.  
"I preferred that bra when it was on the floor," he said huskily. She turned to face him and placed her hands behind her back, searching for the clasp.  
"Oh really?" she responded, her voice teasing.

It was instantaneous: a brief flash that John instinctively knew meant trouble. Then the glass window behind her cracked, an enormous spiderweb of cracks that covered the glass from frame to frame. Anna shrieked and covered her ears.  
"Get down!" he yelled but she was already on her knees, crawling behind the bed. On the floor, he scrambled to put on his pants, pull his shirt back on. Anna yanked the sheet off the bed and wrapped it around her, grabbing the phone from the bedside table.  
"Get Winston up here now!" she shouted into the mouthpiece. John turned her hands over, gently plucking out bits of glass she'd got in her skin when she crawled across the floor. Barely two minutes later, the door opened and Winston came in, followed by a security agent with a gun, tut-tutting when he saw the mess. The hotel manager took stock of the situation, the window glass opaque with fractures, John partially undressed with his arm around Anna, who was picking splinters out of her bleeding hands, and said, "Oh my."  
Anna looked up at him. "Oh my?" she repeated.  
Winston walked to the window on his toes, a fingertip gingerly touching the glass. There were splinters everywhere but the window was intact.  
"Well, it held," he said, a note of pride in his voice. "How fortunate for you two that we decided to invest in bullet-proof glass when we renovated."  
"I, for one, feel dead lucky," Anna said sourly. "How about you, Wick?"  
"Yeah. Dead lucky," he repeated.


	18. Chapter 18

They lay in John's bed. Side by side; not touching. Anna played absent-mindedly with the plaster that covered the small cut on her hand. She'd had just enough time to clean her cuts before Winston had whooshed them out of the room so the cleaning crew could get to work, throwing two robes at them as they passed. In the corridor, curious guests had poked their heads around their doors.  
"No cause for concern, ladies and gentlemen," Winston had said suavely. "A broken window, that's all."  
He deliberately didn't mention that it had been broken from the outside, not within. He gave John and Anna a meaningful look and sent them down to John's room to spend the night.  
"Stay away from the windows," he'd hissed under his breath. "We haven't done the eighth floor yet."  
John had nodded and led her away, trying to avoid the other guests' stares. In his room, they'd slipped wordlessly into his large bed, each lying primly on the opposite side, a chasm of space between them. John had turned off the light and plunged the room into darkness. And silence.

"I guess we need to talk to the High Table," Anna said, breaking the quiet. "We should probably go see the Bowery King first of all, seeing as how he's my boss, in a manner of speaking."  
John didn't answer. He was staring at the ceiling.  
 _"Fine,_ " she said in a deep voice. _"Sounds like a plan, Anna. Let's do that."_  
No reaction.  
She sighed.

"Do you ever feel remorse?" John said suddenly.  
She snapped, "No."  
He said nothing, so she added, "We were trained not to feel remorse. It's a job. You live by the sword, you die by the sword. No civilians, no children, no animals. That's the codex. Anyone you kill or injure knew what they were getting into when they picked up their gun."  
"They trained you well," John said wryly.  
"What does _that_ mean?"  
"Did you ever think about it, Anna? We were vulnerable; young and stupid. They took us in and became our family. They trained us and they brainwashed us, they reprogrammed us to accept a new reality. That this – all of this is okay. This is our normality. Is this normal?"  
He rolled on his side to look at her. "What are we? Serial killers? Sociopaths? Psychopaths?"  
She frowned at him. It wasn't the first time he'd tried to talk to her about it and, like every time before, she didn't want to discuss it.  
"We're professionals," she repeated. "That's the job. Don't start getting so fucking philosophical about it, John."  
"But do you feel remorse?" he insisted.

Anna pulled at the plaster.  
"I have a hundred masses said every year," she said quietly. "For the repose of their souls."  
John stared at her and a slow smile crossed his face. "Say what?"  
"One hundred masses," she enunciated. "I pay Fr Doherty to say dedicate a couple of masses a week to the repose of their souls."  
"The repose of their souls?"  
"Yes. So they'll, like, rest in peace."  
"And you just buy masses?"  
"Yeah, I order them on the internet," she said snarkily. "No, John, you make a donation and the priest says a mass for them."  
He started to laugh. "Okay," he said. "I guess that's one way of doing it."  
"Shut up," she said, rolling on to her back in a huff.  
"I just didn't know you believed in God, much less that you're a practising Catholic."  
"I'm hedging my bets, all right?"  
"I've never known you to go to church."  
"Didn't you hear about my funeral?" she snapped. "It was very moving, apparently. All the Roman rites."  
He laughed out loud and stretched, his bones cracking as he did so.  
Anna opened her mouth to say something, then shut it quickly again.  
"What?" John asked.

She hesitated.  
"It's just that ... while I was working, I had no regrets. It was what we did and I understood why we did it. As soon as I stopped ... well, then it didn't make much sense any more. Back in the real world, you have to hide who you are and not think about what you did. It's like those Russian dolls – you know the ones that sit inside each other?"  
John nodded.  
"It's like you put this version of yourself into another doll and that outside doll is what you present to the world. But the one inside keeps knocking against you, keeps banging to get out."  
She drew in a deep breath.  
"The only way I could stop the banging, stop the thinking, was to return to this."  
In the darkness, she gestured at the room, the Continental, not caring that John couldn't really see it but knowing he understood.  
"It's easier to deal with it when you're dealing with it," he said softly.  
She rolled back on her side to grin at him.  
"You know what I mean," she said.  
He nodded.  
"So there's no escape for us from this, is there?" Anna asked.  
"I don't know," he replied.  
They lay in the darkness for a little more, till Anna whispered, "Good night," and rolled over, away from him, and back into her own thoughts.

xxx

"As I live and breathe," the Bowery King said. "John Wick, back again. There's no getting rid of you, is there?"  
John smiled, a tiny upturn of his lips that was enough to demonstrate goodwill but not enough to show pleasure.  
"How can I help you?" the King said and indicated a chair. Anna stood in the corner, her hands behind her back. John glanced at her but she nodded at the chair, so he sat down.

"We need to a message relayed to the High Table," he said. "We are under attack. Someone keeps putting out a contract in my name on Miss Quinn. I want to know why and I want it to stop."  
"I see," the Bowery King replied. He picked up a delicate china cup and sipped its contents thoughtfully. "Why don't you ask Dieter Römermann?"  
"Anna works for you," John said. "You are our closest contact."  
"Anna is only under contract to me for three more months," the Bowery King said with a broad smile. "I might be more inclined to help if the contract were longer, but three months? It seems to me like we've already achieved an awful lot in our time together. I can afford to cut my losses."  
"You're under contract?" John said, turning to her. "I thought you were working for pay."  
She shrugged, a little shame-faced.  
John whirled back to the King. "I told you I would do two years, the year I owe you and her year as well. You set me free of all obligations after one year, you told me we were quits."  
"Well..." the King said, "let's just say I was of a mind to let you go because I got word that Miss Quinn would be returning and I thought it would make more sense to hold her to her own contract."  
"Why?" John hissed. "I told you I would give you two years."

The Bowery King made a show of pretending to be embarrassed. He wasn't; his lips twitched, trying not to grin at John's ire.  
"Let me spell this out for you, Mr Wick," said the King. "You are, without a doubt, the best in the business." He held a placating hand up in response to Anna's indignant snort. "The best in the business when you need to make a statement. An unequivocal, indisputable statement. Want to keep the fucking Russians off my turf? Send in John Wick, in his Armani suit, straight through the front door of their fucking townhouse and let loose the dogs of war."  
He leaned back in his seat, grinning in satisfaction, his hands folded over his paunch. He studied John for a moment or two, then leaned forward.  
"But say I want a ghost? Say I want someone to sneak into a shitty little crack den in Harlem and kill some fucking punk who's not paying his dues and sneak out again before his momma finds him in a heap on his bedroom floor – then I don't want John Wick. Then I want _her_."  
He pointed at Anna, then threw his hands up in the air in a gesture of resignation.  
"Everyone's got their own individual talents, my man. And I'm greedy: I didn't just want one of you, I wanted you both, with your own very special talents. You dig?" he finished in a sing-song voice.  
John nodded grimly.

"So I'm very sorry you've got a target on your backs, but I don't see what this has got to do with me," the King said. "I'm the new kid on the block at the High Table, I'm not going to go in there and tell them to leave y'all alone."  
"Then we'll tell them ourselves," John said, standing up.  
"In three months," the King replied. "She's taken enough time off. I've got work for her."  
"We need to sort this out now. Either or both of us could be dead in three months," John said.  
"Yeah," the King said. "That's a possibility."  
He put down his teacup and stood up, pressing a button on his telephone as he did.  
"I'll have someone see you out, Mr Wick," he said. "Miss Quinn, you can stay here. I have a task for you."  
"Wait," John interjected. The door opened behind him and a heavy-set man appeared in the doorway. "We'll each do six weeks. I'll work with her, we'll both work for six weeks instead of one person for three months, and that will fulfil any obligations still open."  
Behind him, he heard Anna draw a breath like a hiss.  
"Two of you? At the one time?" the King said. "I don't see the advantage in it for me."  
"You've said it already: everyone's got their own individual talents. You wanted us both to work for you, now you'll have us both working at the same time."  
The King dipped his head to the side, calculating. "And after the contract has been terminated, what will you do then?"  
"We will find and kill the person behind this."  
"Do you think you will manage to stay alive that long?"  
"Our chances are better if we're together," John said firmly.  
The Bowery King considered it.  
"Oh, what the heck," he said after a minute or two. "What do I care? Are you impressed by this ridiculously romantic gesture, Miss Quinn?"  
"No," she muttered from her corner.  
The King laughed. "You should've got her flowers, John. Very well. In that case you can both return this afternoon and I'll do my best to find some gainful employment for you."  
He smiled from one to the other and then said, "Dwayne."  
"The King has dismissed you," the heavyset man said in a booming voice, like a mediaeval courtier.  
Reluctantly, John and Anna left the room. The King, immersed in some papers, did not even bother to look up as they left.


	19. Chapter 19

Winston put on his bifocals and peered at the screen through the bottom of the lenses. His hand moved the mouse slowly into position and he clicked. Anna looked away, unable to bear it. She itched to dive behind the desk and shove him aside to _click-click-click_ open the his emails, quickly.  
"Like I said," Winston said slowly, "This is a matter of utmost discretion, not to be discussed by email. Anything I have found out has been by way of tactful enquiry. Emails? _Pah._ "  
He rolled the word around in his mouth, as though it were something distasteful.  
"So you've spoken to the Chinese, the Russians," Anna said, counting them off on her fingers.  
"The Chinese say they have no hand or part in it, and I believe them," Winston said, removing his glasses. "And John says he brokered a deal with the Russians, is that right?"  
John, silent in his corner, nodded his head. He'd found a place beside the window that allowed him to watch the proceedings with the slight aloofness that had characterised all of their interaction since the visit to the Bowery King that had re-established their working partnership.  
"So you didn't even ask?" she said incredulously. "You take them at their word?"  
"They _gave_ me their word," John said sharply. She looked up at him but his gaze was fixed on something out the window. She bit her lip and said,  
" _La Famiglia D'Antonio_ then?"  
Winston sighed and removed his glasses. "The election is taking place this week," he said. "There are two heirs. The family will come to a decision before the High Table next meets, of that we can be sure. As this will probably involve more than a little blood spilled across some nice marble floor, I think we can safely surmise that they did not call the contract. So who does that leave? Römermann? Doubtful. The _Ninkyo Dantai_? Have no interest in you."  
" _Ninkyo_ \- ?"  
"Yazuka," John said. "The Japanese."  
"So that means it's probably ..." Anna began.  
"Yes," Winston said. "The Bridgemonts. As yet, they have made no claim on their seat. The children haven't come forward. But that doesn't mean anything; on the contrary, I imagine that means quite a lot."

Anna pressed her fingers against her eyes. She was tired; they'd spent the night by the King's side at a poker tournament. He was a very bad player but a gracious loser: after the game was over, he stayed on, drinking and laughing till the frosty dawn. Anna'd had a minute to admire the pink staining the sky between the skyscrapers before she bundled him into the waiting car to take him home.  
"We have to go to England, I suppose," she said wearily. "You ok with that, John?"  
"I guess," he said. "But you know His Majesty won't let us take any time off till the contract has run its course. God knows, he might need someone to accompany him to the grocery store. The farmers' market. The shitter."  
His voice was bitter. The King was extracting his pound of flesh: he didn't necessarily have professional tasks for them, but made sure they were at his beck and call all day, every day. He took mischievous delight in tasking them with the most onerous and tedious jobs, wagging a finger when either of them rolled their eyes or sighed in annoyance. John, in particular, was frustrated: he felt the humiliation of being the King's lapdog more acutely than Anna, who bore it brazenly, a mocking smile on her face whenever she said, "Yes, your majesty."  
John just seethed.

"We'll think of something," Anna said. "One last thing: can you get me some contact in England? One of the Bridgemont kids' phone numbers?"  
"No," Winston said shortly.  
"A name? An address? Like, a hometown?"  
"No, no, no," he said shortly. "That's it, little bird. I have done my bit."  
"And thank you for that," John said. He sat down in the chair beside Anna, his arm almost touching hers, but not quite.  
"That window cost a lot," Winston said. "A small fortune – top of the range glass, custom fit. I don't want every fool thinking he can simply damage property and there are no repercussions. There _are_ rules, you know."  
"We know," Anna smiled. "Boy, do we know."

They stood up to leave.  
"One last thing," Winston said. "Eh... this."  
He waved his glasses at them. "This. You two. Is this on again?"  
"No," John said.  
"The night of the incident, you were – "  
"No," he said again.  
Winston looked at Anna and she shrugged. He shook his head in despair.  
"Why don't you just ... why can't you...?" he groaned. "Just get it over with. I can't keep up – just do it, for crying out loud."  
"Do what?" John asked, stubbornly.  
"Hook up," Winston said. "Or whatever it is people are calling it nowadays."  
John ran his hand through his hair and he laughed his deep laugh.  
"Yeah, that would probably just make things weird," he said, meeting Anna's eyes for a second. "We tried that and it didn't work."  
Winston looked from one to the other, but Anna was staring at the floor, her chin jutting in that way of hers that usually meant she was trying not to say something, fighting an inner battle that she could only win by clamping her teeth together.  
"Well, I'm very glad _you_ think this isn't weird," Winston said. Anna still wouldn't look at him.  
"It's better like this," John said firmly. He opened the door, inclining his head formally in a gesture of thanks. "We appreciate what you've done."  
He left, Anna behind him. Before she shut the door, she caught Winston's eye.  
 _It's better like this_ she mouthed, rolling her eyes.  
And then said, "Fucker," in a voice so low he barely caught it.

Winston's expensive window wasn't the only thing that had shattered that night. Something had jolted in John and he'd retreated into himself, barely speaking to her or anyone else, as far as she could tell. She'd made a few overtures late at night, after a long day spent shadowing the capricious King, slipping her fingers between the buttons of John's shirt to feel his warm skin, pulling at his belt to draw his body to hers, moving against the cloth of his pants with her hips, trying to stir a reaction.

But every time he extracted her fingers, caught her hands and pressed them against her chest, firmly.  
"No," he said in a polite, even tone.  
And that was it. Just no.  
"Is it because you have a girlfriend?" she'd asked mockingly, "The Miss Teen America you're dating? The next Mrs Wick?"  
Her feelings were hurt and she railed around for things to deride him with. Wound him with.  
"That's over," he'd said, rooting in his overnight bag for his toothbrush. "I don't want her to be involved with people like us."  
 _People like us._ It felt like a slap.  
"Fucker," she said. "Fucking shit-eating piece of steaming turd, that's what you are, John fucking Wick," she spat.  
"You used to be better," he said in the same even tone. "You used to be more ... creative."  
"Fuck you!" she cried as he closed the bathroom door.  
She crawled into her bed – John was insisting on separate rooms, or twin beds if separate rooms were not to be had – and pretended to be asleep when he came out. He got into bed and turned his back on her and she heard the rustle of the sheets. Anna peered at him through the darkness, waiting for him to fall asleep, knowing he was doing the same with her. Once or twice she contemplated slipping in beside him, sliding a hand beneath the waistband of his pants so she could run her fingers down the soft skin of his lower stomach, down to stroke him awake, her mouth on his when his eyes flickered open. Once he'd loved to be woken like that, but now he'd probably whack her off the bed – politely, of course – and give her a firm "No!" as though he were house-training a dog.

So she'd given up and they had gradually found equilibrium, working side by side with exaggerated courtesy and professional distance. They chatted about the weather, the job, sports, movies ... and, as the weeks passed, it became tolerable. Normal. Anna was always aware that John was holding himself at a distance but sometimes, out of the corner of her eye, she caught him looking at her thoughtfully. But when turned to look at him, he was always pretending to look away.  
"Finish the contract," she thought, "Find the person who wants us dead. Fix things with John."  
She repeated it daily, a very simple to-do list. She worked for the King. She wrote lists of people who bore a grudge, drew lines from one name to another, trying to find a connection. And she respected John's detachment, treating him with the same even politeness that he found for her.

And she bided her time.


	20. Chapter 20

John bit the bullet and called Dieter Römermann, to see if he could give them any information about the remaining Bridgemont family. Dieter was unexpectedly helpful, his voice crisp and clear across the small speaker of the phone.  
"The son is in London, he works for a financial company. The daughter is married and lives in a town called Walsall, in the near of Birmingham, I think. She has another surname now, not Bridgemont. One minute."  
John heard pages turn.  
"I have the difficulty to read my own handwriting," Römermann said. "But I think I have written Havthorn."  
"Hawthorne" John said. "That's enough to start with. Thank you for your help, Dieter."  
"In return you tell me why you need this information?"  
John hesitated, looked over at Anna, who was sitting at the end of the bed. She nodded.  
He cleared his throat. "Someone keeps renewing a contract on Anna. In my name. I want to find out who it is and the Bridgemonts seem like the obvious choice."  
Dieter was silent.  
"I tell you this in confidence, John," he said, "But only to save you a trip to London. I think it is not the Bridgemonts."  
"Why not?"  
"Because the children are in the process of ... how can I say this in English? _Sie lösen das Geschäft auf._ "  
"They're shutting up shop," Anna translated.  
"Anna says they're closing down the business. Is that what you mean?" John said.  
"Exactly! Exactly this! Their lawyers have already started to approach members of the High Table to offer them the estate of Margaret Bridgemont."  
Anna leaned in close to John and said into the phone, "Why, Dieter?"  
"Because they want nothing to do with the business," Dieter replied. "This is why there is no claim to the seat. They carve up everything she owned among the other members in return for their ... for being allowed to get out."  
John and Anna looked at each other.  
"How do you know this?" Anna said. "Have they approached you?"  
"Yes," he said slyly. "I was the first. And Abram has told me that the lawyer has made him a very nice offer, too, so the Russians are happy. I must guess that the Chinese will be next, or the Italians – when they finally choose their heir."  
"I see," John said.  
"But hush, hush," Dieter said. "Not common knowledge yet."  
"But Dieter," Anna said, "Won't that leave them ...?"  
"Without a single penny? I think, yes. The reason why I think you are wasting your time. What could they pay this contract with?"  
"We'll still have to talk to them," Anna said. "I want to go over there and talk to one of them, face to face."

They could almost hear him shrug on the phone.  
"What you like," he said, his voice neutral. "I must stop now, I have some work to do, my friends."  
"One more thing," John said quickly. "How are you? How are you... how are you coping?"  
"I am coping," he said, his voice bleak. "Gordana was not my just wife, she was my life, you know? Every day I struggle. And my boys, they struggle. Tim, especially. He and my wife were so close – the youngest boy, the baby, right? It is hard. But who am I telling this to? You have been in my place, John. You have been in my shoes."  
"Yes," he said, his voice gruff.  
"Does it get better, John?"  
"A little," he replied. Then he said his goodbyes and hung up. Anna pretended to flick through channels on the hotel room TV so she wouldn't have to meet his eye.

She had three days for her trip England, two of which were spent travelling there and back. She'd rung the King and told him that she had the stomach flu. Just to warn him that she might have to use the facilities more often than usual, but he wasn't to worry, it wouldn't impact her work.  
"You wanna come to work with the stomach flu?" he cried. "You wanna spread your filthy germs around my people? Do you seriously think I want to spend the next four days on the floor of my bathroom? You come near this place before you have fully recovered and I swear to God, Anna Quinn, I will boot you out the door myself."  
"But it's not that bad," she protested, "Honest. I have never missed a day of work due to illness and I'm not going to start now."  
She made some gagging noises. "Gotta go," she whispered weakly.  
"STAY THE FUCK AWAY!" the Bowery King roared down the phone as she hung up. Then she picked up her bag.  
"All systems go," she said to John.  
"Puking, diarrhoea, the whole show?" John asked.  
"Yeah. Tell him how gross I am," she said. "Shouldn't be hard."  
He grinned and spontaneously she leaned forward, raising herself on her toes to kiss his cheek.  
"Wish me luck, Mr Wick," she said softly in his ear. To her surprise, his lips brushed her cheek, lingering there for a second.  
"Good luck," he said and stepped back, inclining his head in his formal way, taking his leave.


	21. Chapter 21

"They've found God," Anna said curtly.  
She tossed her overnight bag on her purple sofa and stretched, her bones cracking in protest.  
"God?" John repeated. When she stretched, her shirt rode up revealing her stomach and the scar below her ribs.  
"Yeah. Young Mrs Hawthorne didn't seem at all surprised to see me when I waylaid her after her yoga class. She even suggested we go and have a coffee together."  
Anna kicked off her shoes and went into the kitchen to fetch a glass of water. On her return, she collapsed onto the sofa, pushing the brightly-coloured cushions aside.  
"The upshot of that conversation – the longest hour of my fucking life, John – is that she and her brother have found God; they are turning their backs on their mother and her life's work in favour of the Almighty, their Saviour. Just in case you're worried – and no doubt you are – they forgive us both, particularly you, but they're pretty sure we're both going to hell. And they seem okay with that. Kind of gleeful, even."  
"Great," John muttered. He was sitting in the armchair next to the window, his feet stretched out on her orange rug.  
"You okay?" she asked, glancing up.  
"Yeah. Why?"  
"You look – off."  
Anna sat upright, studying him. "Was everything okay here while I was gone? Did you stay here the whole time?"

John looked around her apartment: the bright colours, the pictures on the wall, the small stack of books beside the sofa.  
"I was away for a couple of nights," he confessed. "His royal pain in the ass gave me some time off to look after you, so I went home for a couple of nights."  
"Home?"  
"To check and see how work is progressing on the house," he said.  
It had seemed absurd: returning to his plans for the rest of his life. While he was trying not to get killed, his architect was trying to contact him to see what kind of light fixtures he wanted. He'd visited the construction site, where work had ground to a halt when he'd disappeared, and then visited the architect's office to see what he could do to get it started again.

John looked up casually, met her gaze. His stomach fluttered a little bit and he suddenly knew that she was going to catch him in a lie, so he made a show of standing up, turning towards the bathroom. But she leapt up off the couch and stood in front of him, then leaned in and stared up at him, her blue eyes narrowed and suspicious.  
"What did you do?" she said.  
"Nothing."  
It was nothing. Not really anything. He blinked and an image of a blond head, a naked woman, flashed across his eyeballs.  
"I have to – " he said, gesturing at the bathroom door.  
She stepped aside silently and let him pass. He could feel her eyes boring into her as he shut the bathroom door.

x x x

He hadn't meant for it to happen. While he was waiting for David, the architect, to finish with another client, Clara had walked out of an adjoining office and had done a double take when she saw him in the waiting area.  
"John!" she'd cried, her face first lighting up in surprise, then darkening in anger.  
"I thought you'd be in India by now," he'd replied weakly.  
"Yeah, no, I decided I didn't want to go by myself so much. I'm waiting on a friend to finish up an internship, then we're going together. Where have you been? You never returned my calls."  
The note of accusation was clear. And deserved. John sighed inwardly and trotted out the usual tale: family emergency. In Europe. Last-minute. It was pathetic, even to his ears, but Clara seemed willing to accept it.  
"I'd say you owe me dinner as an apology," she said, reaching out to straighten his tie. Her dark red fingernails brushed against the thin material of his shirt and he had to suppress an involuntary shiver.  
"Sure," he replied. "Tonight?"  
"Why not?" she replied and touched his chest again, this time pressing her nails against his flesh.

They'd ended up at her place – roommate out of town, she'd whispered breathlessly, pulling him inside.  
"No," he'd protested weakly, but knew what was going to happen. Why had they gone for dinner in the first place? Why had he driven her home? Why had he walked her to her door? He could pretend it was all by chance, a fluke, but he knew when he got out of his car what he was getting into.  
Clara pulled his face down to hers, kissing him intensely, pulling at his jacket and tugging his tie. Still kissing her, he tugged at his tie, untucked his shirt, while she divested herself of her clinging top and reached behind her back to unbutton her skirt.  
"Tada!" she said, stepping out of it, like a magic trick. John tried not to look at her tanned body, her lacy underwear – barely more than scraps of fabric – tried to sort out his thoughts.  
"Clara," he began weakly.  
"I've missed you, John," she wheedled. "Missed sleeping with you. Haven't you missed me?"  
She pulled his belt to draw him closer, then snaked a hand down his pants, rubbing her palm against his erect cock.  
"You've missed me!" she said in delight.  
"Clara," he tried again, pulling away, "this isn't a good idea. I don't know why I'm here."  
He knew exactly why he was there. He wanted to sleep with her, fuck her. He wanted a night off from all the other crap: a night with an appreciative woman, no strings attached. He needed respite.  
Clara took off her bra and tossed it on the ground, then took his hands and placed them on her warm breasts. Instinctively he squeezed them gently, his breath coming in a sudden rush.  
"I can't ... I have to leave tomorrow," he said. "It would only be one night."  
"Let's make it one great night, then."  
She turned, looking at him over her shoulder. "You coming?"  
He kicked off her shoes and followed her into the bedroom.

The next morning he'd woken early, just as the first rays of dawn were coming up, extricating an arm from under Clara's shoulders. He rubbed his eyes with his fingertips, trying not to think about what they'd done. The sex had been good – better than it had been when they'd been dating. Perhaps it had been the finite nature of the encounter or his self-imposed abstention, but he'd buried his head in her hair, eyes pressed shut as he thrust into her. She'd arched her back, moaning, digging her long nails deep into his back, causing enough pain to make him groan - a kind a retribution for what he was doing. She'd come quickly, and again, then he allowed himself his release, turning his face away when she tried to snuggle up against him, a leg draped across his hips and her hand clutching his shoulder.

He looked at her sleeping form, looked around for something to write on. He found a pencil and a pad of sticky notes: what would he write? _Thank you? Farewell? Best of luck in your future endeavours?  
_ He put the pencil down on the empty pad, picked up his shoes and slipped silently out the door. His body ached in good ways but he felt miserable. He felt like shit.

x x x

Anna pretended nothing was wrong. She fixed some dinner, complaining about hotel food, plane food. They ate the salad and made small talk: the weather in New York, the weather in Birmingham. Who to turn to next. What their next step would be.  
"Has the Agency got back to you with any information about the hacking?" she asked, spearing her last cherry tomato.  
"No," John said. "I doubt we'll learn anything from them."  
Anna yawned, covering her mouth with her hand.  
"I think I'm gonna hit the hay," she said and yawned again. Reflexively, John yawned too.  
"You want me to take the couch?" she asked casually.  
"No, no, I'll sleep on the couch," he said. "I insist."  
"I won't argue," Anna said. "I haven't had a proper night's sleep in about four days."  
She stood up, clearing their plates to the sink.  
"Goodnight, then," she said, looking at him with her frank gaze. "Are you sure you're okay?"  
"Fine," he said. "Honestly. Fine."  
He smiled at her and she looked as if she wanted to say something, and then stopped. With a nod she left the room and went to bed.

He sat at the kitchen table for a while, reading the news on his phone, before he padded softly into the living room. There was no sound from Anna's bedroom, so he turned on one of the little lamps on the side table, then silently pulled off his jeans, his underwear and pulled on the cotton pants he wore at night. He yanked the long-sleeved t-shirt over his head and heard a sound, a gasp. His head whipped around. She was standing in the doorway. He hastily picked up his old t-shirt from the back of the sofa, but before he could put it on, she was in front of him. Anna turned him around and put a cold little hand on his back.  
"I'm glad you had fun while I was away," she said in an icy voice and scraped her fingernails down his skin. He twisted his head around to see her  
"I – " he began but she stepped back and jerked a thumb at the mirror on the wall behind him. He saw his back, the tattoo, and the scratches Clara had given him in bed.  
"Shithead," she said, not meeting his gaze, and walked off into her room, pulling the door behind her. It closed gently. She immediately yanked it open and glared at him.  
"Just in case that wasn't clear," she said, and jerked it shut with all her might. It slammed satisfactorily loudly and rattled in its frame.  
"I am a shithead," he said loudly, loudly enough for her to hear. But there was no answer.


	22. Chapter 22

"Get up."  
She woke, abruptly, rudely, pulled from sleep to the surface of consciousness by a rough hand.  
"Anna, get up."  
Light flooded the room.  
"Jesus," she complained. "John?"  
"How could you sleep through that?"  
"Through what?"  
John picked up the bottle beside the bed and thrust it into her face.  
"Ambien?" he said accusingly. "Really? How stupid is that?"  
"You're next door," she said, pulling the blanket back up around her. "I'd never take them if I was alone."  
He yanked the blanket off her and pulled her to her feet. Anna swayed, yawned, and he shook her roughly.  
"Wake up, Quinn. Seriously, wake up. We need to get out of here."  
"Why?"  
"Someone got in."

That seemed to help wake her up.  
"In here? In my apartment?" she said.  
John was rummaging through a drawer, pulling out shirts, underwear.  
"Put these on," he ordered. "Quickly. I'm guessing more will follow when they realise that that guy's not coming back."  
She pushed him aside, pulled out a bra, pants, shirt and top, then stripped and dressed, hopping behind John as he left the bedroom, pulling on her socks.  
"Did you take care of him?" she asked, but John put a finger to his lips.

The living room was a mess, the sofa upended and the cushions scattered. A man's body lay on the floor and next to him a bloodied copy of Anna's German dictionary.  
"Aw, John," she complained. "That book cost a lot of money, man."  
John _shh_ -ed her and rolled the guy over on his back.  
"Non-agency," he summarised. "So the contract is wide open, otherwise the King would have a say in who gets to roam around his territory, picking off his employees."  
"Former employees, more or less," Anna corrected. She looked around for her backpack, pulling it out from underneath the dresser. "Why do you think this creep here is alone?"  
"Because his cell just rang," John said. "Come on."  
She pulled on her shoes and looked around regretfully.  
"Come on," John repeated. He grabbed her sleeve and tugged her down the hall.  
"Why don't we go out through the attic?"  
"That's how he got in," he answered grimly. "And I hate to break it to you but I don't think it was the first time he was in here, Annie. He just didn't expect to find me on the sofa this time round."  
He pulled his gun and nodded at the door. She opened it, he peeked outside and jerked his head to show she should follow.

They hurried down the stairs, padding lightly on the concrete steps and staying in the shadows as they did. At the door to the hall they paused, Anna rose on her toes to look through the glass panel, then shrank back and nudged John. He counted silently to three and they slipped into the hall. It was empty, the concierge desk was vacant. Anna moved quickly over to the wire grille and looked through it, straining to see.  
"He killed Jason," she said, biting her lip. "That was unnecessary. That was unfair."  
John looked over her shoulder at the large shape on the ground, not sure what to say.  
"Bastards," she muttered.  
"Where can we go?" he said. "Do we have a safe house here in New York or do we have to leave?"  
She was looking at the body of the concierge, shaking her head.  
"Anna," he snapped. "Wake up."  
"What?"  
"Before we set food out that door, we need to know where we're going. Safe house? In the city? Or are we leaving?"  
She blinked once or twice. "Yeah, safe house. Okay. Yeah, I know someone we can go to. In Queens,"  
"Too far," he said.  
The door of the apartment block was pushed open and they froze. A young man in a black hoodie walked in, his nose in his phone. John gripped his gun tighter but Anna held his arm.  
"Fourth floor," she whispered. "Hey," she said as he passed. He looked up and nodded at them distractedly.  
"Anywhere else?" John demanded. Anna's eyes were beginning to roll again. He didn't know how many sleeping pills she'd taken but it was too many. "Do you have any friends?"  
"No friends," she said and started to laugh. "No friends. Except you. Fuck me, that's sad."

A shot pinged across the lobby and ricocheted off the wall, taking a neat chunk of plaster with it. John shoved her towards the door they'd just come in and ran up the stairs. When they heard the door open behind them, Anna lunged towards the railing, gun in hand but John pushed her back.  
"You're not safe," he snapped. He took aim, fired twice, three times. The door opened again and gun shot rang up the stairwell.  
"Hey!" someone roared. "I'm gonna call the police!"  
John grabbed her hand and pulled her out into the corridor of the second floor apartments. An elderly man was standing by an open door, a rifle in his hand. He was wearing nothing but an undershirt and underpants, his white hair tufty and wild.  
"I'm gonna shoot," he said in warning, raising the gun.  
"Please don't," John said, pushing the barrel of the rifle down, "We won't harm you."  
He pushed past the man into his apartment, Anna still in tow.  
"What the fuck?" the old man spluttered.  
"Fire that thing," Anna said, "And we're going to have to kill you, old man."  
She raised her gun in warning.  
"Fuck you," the old man snarled and pressed the trigger. They jumped as a bullet lodged in the wall above them.  
John flung up the living room window and looked out.  
"You got cataracts?" she asked scornfully. "You're a shit shot, dude."  
The old man roared and raised the gun again.  
"Fire escape and jump," he said and half-pushed, half-bundled her out the window.  
"We're leaving," he said placatingly. "No harm done. You'll never see us again."  
The man fired off a shot and shattered the glass of the window, missing John by inches. He scrambled out the window after Anna, made a leap for the fire escape and missed, flailing as he fell through the air and landed on the ground with a whack.

Anna pulled him up.  
"Run," she said "before Psycho Grandpa gets lucky and hits one of us."  
John stifled a moan, smacked some dirt off his left leg and moved behind her, limping. This time she took his hand and half-pulled, half-dragged him behind her, telling to shut up when he groaned.

She knew the city better than him. She knew the back streets and the alleys, the short cuts across the plazas of big business buildings and the side streets that housed exclusive hotels and garages for expensive cars. She led him past homeless people, past pimps and prostitutes, past cop cars and tourists. After half an hour of walking, she stopped outside an Irish pub and looked up at the sign. It was dark and shuttered; in fact it looked as if it had been closed for years. As John watched, she ran her fingers along the line of doorbells beside it, their name tags faded or missing, then pressed the second, the fourth, the third. There was a click and then she pushed the door of a bar open.  
"After you," she said.

They went inside. The bar was dark and had the odd sweet-sour smell of spilled drink. A single lightbulb hung over the wooden counter, a dim beacon in a dark room.  
"What is this?" John asked.  
"A safe house," she replied. "Of sorts. A kind of limbo, they call it."  
They sat down at the bar. The counter was worn and scratched, the wood warped from spilled drinks and rough elbows.  
"Does anyone know we're here?" John asked.  
"He knows," she replied grimly.  
The door behind the bar opened and a man walked in, wiping his hands on a towel that he tucked into the belt at his waist. He was heavy set, with a round stomach that was only emphasised by the leather belt that went around it like the line for the equator on a globe. He wore a snow-white t-shirt and had an equally white beard. If it weren't for his shock of still-red hair, he might have looked like Santa Claus. An Irish Santa Claus, John realised, when the man opened his mouth.

"What the fuck do you want?" he asked savagely, slapping a bottle of Jameson's whiskey on the counter.  
"A haven, Shay. For a couple of nights," Anna replied.  
"Fuck off," the barman replied. "Millions on your heads, not touching either of you with a barge pole."  
He sat a glass of whiskey in front of them and indicated that they should drink. John did so obediently; Anna held hers between her fingers.  
"We can pay," Anna said.  
"Oh, yeah? You can pay? Can you pay me cash money?" he asked with a sneer. "Because I don't want none of your fucking poncey coins, do you hear me?"  
"Cash money," she agreed. "Two nights. We need rest and then we'll be on our way."  
"It's not up to me," the barman said. "He'll decide if you can stay and if he says no, you're out on your ear."  
"He'll be okay with it," Anna said. "For old times' sake."  
"He won't like it," Shay said and threw his eyes upwards, in the direction of the ceiling. "Pretty fucking cheeky to bring this one with you as well. Won't go down well, you know that."  
"He'll have to deal," she said curtly.  
"What is this place?" John asked. The whiskey warmed him deep inside. He didn't want to look at his ankle – yet. He knew it was probably swollen and needed ice.  
"This is limbo," the Irishman said. "This is purgatory. This is where all comers take their drinks and parley. No guns on the premises, no knives. No fighting. This is our territory and these are our rules."  
He took John's glass and refilled it. " _Sláinte_ ," he said, clinking glasses.

"Is this ..." John searched for the words. "Is this official? Is this known to the High Table?"  
Anna and the barkeeper laughed.  
"High Table!" Shay spluttered. "Who's on the fucking High Table. Russians? They don't come in here. The Asians? No, thank you. The Italians have their own speakeasy and that German, that dour prick Römermann? Give me a break. As for the English - ?"  
He made a show of pretending to spit on the floor, then leaned over to John. "I hear I have you to thank for getting that fucking English bitch off the High Table."  
He raised an eyebrow at John, a token of begrudging admiration.  
"Hey," Anna interrupted. "I played a part in that, too."  
"Sure, you did," Shay said, not taking his eyes off John. "Thing is, Mr Wick, this is an Irish bar. And seeing as no one represents us on the High Table, we look after our own. Get me?"  
"And she's one of yours?" John asked, nodding at Anna.  
Shay's face darkened. "Are you saying she isn't?" he growled.  
"I'm saying nothing," John said, backing down. "She's as Irish as they come." He paused. "I guess."  
He could feel Anna grinning at him without even looking over.  
 _How did she know this place?_ he wondered. _When had she ever come here? Not while they were working together, that's for sure, probably during her years of working alone._  
He could imagine her sitting at the bar, her fingers clasped around a whiskey she would never drink, her ears pricked up to pick up any information she could get from the bar's regulars.

"Can you show us a room?" Anna said, pushing the glass away. She hadn't touched it. Shay swept it up and downed it in one swallow.  
"One room each?" he demanded.  
"A room for both of us is enough," she replied.  
The barman shook his head. "Are you sure about this?" he asked and glanced at the ceiling again.  
"We're not lovers," she said crossly. "That's just the way we roll."  
There was a sound from behind the bar and a man appeared in the doorway. Instantly John slipped off his stool, landing on his bad ankle. He bit back a cry, his hand on his gun.  
"Annie?" the man in the doorway said.  
He was younger than the barman and even though his hair was tousled from sleep, John could see he would be considered handsome by many. His hair was black and his beard a little silver, he had an earring in one ear, a plain silver hoop that caught the dim light of the bulb when he pushed the hair off his face. He had an Irish accent too, one that was coloured by some New York, but not enough to erase the cadence of his native country. He stood in the doorway wearing some kind of dark blue pajama pants and a t-shirt that advertised a brewery in Maine. He was tightly muscled: he would know how to hold his own in a fight, John knew. He would deliver damage.

John felt her hesitate a second, a half-second. Then she got off her stool and walked around the side of the bar to hug him. The man's arms wrapped around her, he dipped his head down so they were face to face, mouth to mouth, and he whispered something John couldn't hear.  
He looked away, his stomach twisting.  
"Are you back?" the man said, pushing her back gently so he could see her face, her response.  
Anna hesitated again, glanced at John, then answered, "For a little while."  
She cleared her throat.  
"James, this is John, John Wick. You know the name, I'm sure."  
James held out his hand and John took it. The other man pumped his enthusiastically.  
"Pleasure to meet you," he said. "I've heard a lot about you. Not from Annie, of course. She'd never tell me anything, the witch."  
He still had his arm around Anna's shoulders and she stood there, on her toes, as though she would flee at any minute. John opened his mouth to say something, then James looked from his face to Anna's and dropped his arm abruptly.  
"Jesus Christ," he said, alarmed. "Are you two - ? Sorry about that. Jesus. Sorry, I didn't realise you were – "  
He stepped away, his hands in the air.  
"We're not," Anna said stiffly. "He's just John. We're in a bit of a mess and we need a haven for a couple of nights."  
Her voice held a note of pleading, a tiny quaver. Behind them, Shay rattled some glasses to show how he felt about that.  
"He's not one of us," James said. "You know the rules, Annie."  
He smiled down at her, pushed a lock of hair off her face and John saw the barely perceptible shiver.  
"But I'm one of us," she said softly and placed two fingertips in the dip on his chest.  
James stared at her but her eyes were fixed on his t-shirt, on her own fingers.

"Just John?" James said, grinning, tearing his eyes away. He looked John up and down. "You look pretty fucked up, man. You need anything?"  
"I would greatly appreciate some ice," John said formally.  
James rapped the wooden counter and Shay filled a tea-towel with ice-cubes, his ill-will clinking almost as loudly as the ice.  
"Come, come," James said jovially and led them around the side of the bar. Behind them, Shay switched off the lightbulb. It went out with a hiss.

John made it to the top of the stairs and James pushed open a door. Inside there was a small room, like a monk's cell, with a single bed and a picture of Jesus above the bed, his heart exposed and his gaze piously directed skyward,. _Pray for us, Sacred Heart!_ was written beneath it.  
"You'll need to bandage that," James said, nodding at his ankle. "First Aid kit in the bathroom down the hall. Fix it up tight, you'll be grand in the morning."  
His hand was on Anna's waist. John hesitated but the other man steered her across the hall, pushing open a door. Inside, by the light of a bedside lamp, John saw a large bed, the bed-clothes rumpled, indicating its occupant had hastily left it, torn from sleep. James walked inside, gently pulling her behind, his hand snaking up her t-shirt before the door was even closed. John paused, not sure what to do. Anna wouldn't look at him, instead her face was turned away determinedly. Her hands hung limply by her side, not pushing away the fingers that were stroking her breast.  
"Good night, Just John," the other man said with a grin.  
John cleared his throat; looked down. Then he went inside and closed the door.

\- - -  
 _Thank you for reading along and for taking the time to leave a review!_


	23. Chapter 23

Once the door closed behind them, Anna pushed his hand away.  
"Really, James?" she asked, pained. "It's been … what? At least five years? Come on."  
"You're the one that got away, darling," he said, crossing his hands over his heart. " _Mo chroí, cuisle mo chroí…_ "  
" _Bleurgh_ ," she said, shuddering. "Don't start that palaver."  
"Palaver?" he said, sitting down on the edge of the bed. "You mean my blarney? My baloney? My sweet spiel?"  
He threw his head back and laughed. Anna shoved him gently.  
"Sweet-talking Irishman," she scolded. "You're full of bullshit. Shame on you. And shame on you for not telling your Uncle Shay. Honestly, James, when are you going to grow a pair and tell him?"  
James looked shifty, pulled at the hem of his t-shirt.  
"Annie, he's my uncle. My only family over here. If I told him, it'd break his heart. Then he'd break my face. And disown me."  
"So you mean to tell me that instead of just telling him you're gay, you've spent the last few years pretending you're pining after me?"  
"Shay is a man who knows heartbreak," James intoned solemnly. "He understands the pain of unrequited love."  
And he started laughing again.  
"You are incorrigible," Anna said crossly. "Seriously, James, this is not a joke."  
He sobered up a little, reining in his laughter to a small grin. Anna couldn't recall him ever being entirely serious: he treated life like a piece of entertainment put on solely for his amusement. Watching her, he stretched out on the bed, his hands behind his head.  
"Ah, come on," he said. "We made a great couple. And we had an awesome meet-cute: international woman of mystery saves dashing Irishman from the grips of a paramilitary organisation in the depths of County Cavan. It's like a Hollywood film, girl!"  
Anna sighed. Shay had paid her good money to travel to Ireland and extract his nephew from his negotiations with the Provisional IRA. Selling arms to a terrorist organisation is never a good idea and James had only made it worse by trying to sell arms that he didn't actually possess. He was, he later claimed, trying out the concept of a pyramid scheme. Anna had been, in equal parts, bowled over by his outrageous stupidity and overwhelmed by his infectious mischief and had quickly packed him up and taken him back to the US, leaving behind large sums of money to smooth trouble waters.

"Anyways," James said, "I'm not the only one in the grips of unrequited love. Your man Wick was making cow eyes at you when I closed the door, God love him."  
"He wasn't making cow eyes at me," she said, not even sure what that meant. "He's been out banging his ex-girlfriend's boots all damn weekend, so he's got no fucking right to make any kind of eyes at me. Hell, I'm still trying to figure out whether he's trying to kill me."  
James sat up.  
"Tell all," he said.  
She didn't. James Tierney was mercurial and she was never entirely sure whether she could trust him, but she gave him the abbreviated version. He listened carefully and then said,  
"Sure, just ask the High Table. Straight out, like."  
Anna laughed. "It's always so easy to you, James," she said. "Just march in there and ask."  
"Why not?"  
"When will we next get the chance? They won't convene till fall and if I have to from seat to seat, I'll be dead before I get to all of them. Heck, the Japanese will kill me before I get off the plane in Kobe."  
"The Japanese are very ... thorough," James agreed.  
"Besides," she continued, thinking out loud, "I don't think it's the Japanese. Or the Chinese. And the Koreans are too busy jostling for a seat now that Bridgemont is gone to worry about us. None of the Asians have ever had any beef with either me or John. And he's brokered some deal with the Russians..."  
"So the Europeans, then. Bridgemont's family?"  
"Nah," Anna said. "They're out of the business. I think it's the Italians. The D'Antonio clan, the 'Ndrangheta? I don't know."  
"I still think you should ask," James said, moving over so she could lie down beside them.  
"Yeah, do a tour of Italy," Anna grinned, stretching out. "Starting in Sicily, moving over to Naples, up to Rome and finishing up in a morgue. Oh, and I'd like to visit Pompeii, you know. See Mount Vesuvius. Do you think I could fit it in?"  
"Just go and talk to them all," he said. "Ask for an audience and ask them straight out: who wants you dead and why. In any case, the Europeans are meeting in Italy next week you know."  
He pulled at a thread on the bed cover, not looking at her.  
"Are you serious?" Anna asked. "Just the Europeans?"  
"All of the Italians, the fat little German, the Russians and a representative of a Serbian syndicate that wants the vacant seat. The German organised it. Apparently his wife was Serbian or something, so he's pushing for their entry before the Koreans get a foot in the door."  
Anna's stomach plummeted when she thought of Gordana Römermann, her smiling face and tall, elegant frame. And she remembered her crumpled into a heap on the floor on a spreading pool of blood, dying of a bullet wound meant for her.

"Are they meeting at the Rome Continental?" she asked.  
James looked at her, his gaze calculating.  
"Let's talk straight, here," he said. "What will you give me if I tell you what I know?"  
"How do I know that what you'll tell me is good?" she shot back.  
"My information is always good," James rejoined.  
Anna weighed it up. James wouldn't offer it if he didn't know something useful. He had an intricate network of informants and the ability to charmingly finagle information out of almost anyone.  
"The ball's in your court," he said, a grin on his face.  
"Okay. I'll bite. What do you want?"  
"You'll come with me to my sister's wedding in August," he said quickly. "It's in Dublin. You'll come along and be my fake girlfriend and stop my father and Uncle Shay from having a heart attack."  
"No," she said quickly. "No, no, no, no."  
"It'll be a lovely wedding," he cajoled. "The reception is being held at a hotel by the sea. Open bar. Great band playing later on. You'll have a wonderful time."  
"James," she said, rolling on her side to face him. "You can't keep this up. Being gay is not a big deal nowadays."  
"They won't let me take over the business if they find out," he said. "And it's not my family in Ireland that's the problem, you know. It's the old guys who work for us over here. The retired police officers, the firemen, the old dudes who grew up with fathers who beat the shit out of them if they dated an Italian or a Polish girl. The guys who sing 'Danny Boy' at funerals and still donate money to the bloody IRA. Most of them have never been to Ireland, they're loyal to a country that ceased to exist forty years ago. They'd never accept a homosexual running Tierney's Bar, not to mention the network behind it. The person who runs the bar holds the power. You know this, Anna; this place is a fucking bastion of toxic masculinity. They'd burn the bar down first."  
She studied his face and he stared back at her, his blue eyes twinkling. If she didn't know him as well as she did, she would assume he was joking. But he wasn't.  
"I don't like it," she said finally. "But I'll do it. Reluctantly. No kissing. Don't introduce me to your granny. And no pretending we're engaged. In fact, I'm going to look a little bit bored all the time so it'll come as no surprise to anyone when I dump you back in the States. Deal? Then spill the beans."

James laughed and slung an arm over her shoulders, pulling her closer, as though someone might hear.  
"I know a guy who's got connections to the Italians over here. Apparently they're heading to a place called Perugia next week as a show of solidarity. They're taking their own people with them."  
"Where's Perugia?"  
"Central Italy," he said. "University city, loads of foreigners. They don't want to go to Rome, don't want to do it on Continental ground, so they're meeting at a monastery just outside the city. I can find out the name tomorrow – Saint Something or Other. Same rules apply but it's away from the eyes of the High Table. It's not happening; not officially, anyway."  
"And you're sure about this?"  
"The Italians in New York are mobilising, so something's happening."  
She patted his face.  
"Thank you," she said. "I'll go to your stupid wedding and I'll even wear heels."  
He laughed.  
"Do you think your man over there has gone asleep yet?" he asked ,gesturing in the vague direction of the corridor.  
"Wick?" Anna said. "I doubt it. He's probably got his ear to the door, trying to find out what's going on."  
James said nothing, just thumped the headboard. It banged against the wall so loudly, it made her jump.  
"What the - ?" she began again.  
He thumped it again. And again. And grunted.  
"Yeah," he said in a guttural voice. "That's it. _Yeah_ , baby."  
He thumped the headboard.  
Anna started laughing.  
"James," she cried, _sotto-voce_. "You're unbelievable."  
"YOU'RE UNBELIEVABLE!" he roared and rocked the bed, so the springs creaked. "Come on," he whispered, "Pay him back for shagging his ex."  
She hesitated.  
"JAMES!" she cried. "Oh, please! PLEASE!"  
"Say I'm the best you've ever had," he whispered, pushing the creaking bed.  
"YOU'RE ONE OF THE BEST I'VE EVER HAD!" she moaned. "DEFINITELY IN THE TOP THREE!"  
"Bitch," he complained good-naturedly. He thumped the head-board again.  
"Okay," he instructed. "Fake-orgasm and make it quick. I'm wrecked and I need my sleep."  
Anna made a few triumphant moans and lay back on the bed.  
"Almost as exhausting as the real thing," she said and he grinned at her.  
James pulled up the blanket around her shoulders.  
"'Night, Annie," he said and turned away from her to sleep. 


	24. Chapter 24

John woke to the sound of a busy house: doors slamming, people shouting. He pulled on his pants and shirt and went to the door to peek out into the hall. The door across the way was open and he could see the empty bed, bedclothes messy and a pillow on the floor. He strained his ears and heard the sound of Anna laughing from downstairs. He put on his shoes and followed the sound of her voice.

She was sitting in a tiny kitchen behind the bar. It was obviously used to prepare the pub food: it had a large stainless steel oven and sink, as well as a six-ring stove that James was currently standing over, a frying pan in each hand.  
"Hiya, John," he said easily when the other man came in. "Sit down, have some coffee."  
Anna was sitting at on a small wooden bench, like something from an old school room, her elbows resting on a table that bore the stains and scars of years of food preparation. When John sat down, she stood and pulled a mug out of a cupboard, filling it with coffee. She handed it to him with some sugar and creamer. John nodded his thanks and bent his head over his drink so he wouldn't have to look at either of them.  
"Hey, John," James called in his singsong accent. "I'm going to do you a slap-up breakfast, man, the likes of which you'll have never had before. You're in for a treat: full Irish breakfast. Sausages, rashers, tomatoes, spuds, mushrooms – everything fried in a heap of fresh Irish butter. I know what you're thinking: that sounds like the famous full English breakfast, amiright? But you're wrong. We did it first. That's just another thing that those fuckers stole from us, our fucking breakfast."  
He laughed, throwing back his head. He had an infectious laugh: John looked over at Anna and she was grinning, too.  
"I won't ... I don't ..." he began politely, not sure how he could tell the handsome Irishman with the large laugh that he couldn't face the thoughts of a plate full of greasy food. He looked to Anna in desperation and she rescued him.  
"James," she said gently. "Please don't. Just some toast or maybe an egg or something. Honestly. No need for the full Irish."  
She sipped her coffee, smiling at him.  
"Well, I already gave _you_ the full Irish last night," James said with a suggestive wink. "But how about Mr Wick?"  
Anna spluttered coffee all over the table.  
" _James_!" she hissed, but he just laughed.  
"C'mon, we're all adults here. What about it, John? You want a decent breakfast? A _man's_ breakfast?"  
"I'm okay with toast," John said politely.  
James sighed theatrically and put some bread in the toaster.  
"Ingrates," he muttered.  
From somewhere down the hall, Shay's voice roared, "James! JAMES!"  
He rolled his eyes and left the kitchen, shouting "What? _Whaaat_?" in the same rough tone.

The toast popped. Anna seemed to know her way around the kitchen: she fetched two plates, knives, some butter and a jar of honey and put them down on the table, smiling at John as she did so.  
"He seems nice," John said finally.  
"Who? James? Yeah, I suppose so," she replied, busying herself with the butter.  
"How did ... How do you two know each other?"  
"I got him out of some trouble in Ireland," she said. "Private contract."  
"When you were ... when you were with Pfeiffer?"  
She glanced at him.  
"No, after I'd left, actually. It was a one-off thing, personal favour to Shay. I did it in the school holidays, if you must know. Flew to Ireland over Easter and returned with that idiot in tow."  
Her voice was teasing, as though she couldn't even talk about James without smiling.  
"He's some guy," John said, picking his words carefully.  
"You can say that again," she said, breaking into a full grin.  
The kitchen door was flung open and James burst in.  
"Were youse talking about me?" he demanded. "You were, weren't you? Feckers. Only good stuff, I hope. Move up, Annie."  
He slid in on the bench, wrapping an arm around her shoulder and taking her toast off the plate.  
"You told him about the meeting in Perugia, babe?" he asked.  
John, perched on the very edge of the bench, felt himself pushed to the side, literally and figuratively.  
"What meeting?"  
Anna filled him in, with James' help.  
"And I found out the name of the place they're meeting," he said, leaning his head against Anna's. " _Monastero San Gianni_. Will you remember that, John, or should I write that down for you?" James asked solicitously.  
"I'm sure I'll manage to remember it," John said with a stiff smile, standing up to refill his cup.  
"You've got some honey on your face, honeybunch," James said and licked Anna's cheek and then yelped, "Ow!"  
"Did I stand on your foot? My bad," Anna said, far too innocently.  
"Anyways, you two will have to do something with yourselves if you're planning on heading to Italy. The place with be crawling with all kinds of people who want to take you out. Annie, you can dye your hair or something, can't you? Do you want me to get you some dark contact lenses? I know a guy who could help me out."  
"That would be great."  
"And what about you, John? Are you normally this scruffy? You could do with a good shave – and I can trim that hair for you."  
"No, thanks," John said. He tried to sound friendly but he knew he wasn't succeeding.  
"Ah, yerra, come on. The state of you! You need a haircut."  
John glanced at Anna once again for help, but she was nodding.  
"He's really good, John. He trained as a barber."  
"For a year, only," James said modestly. "But I'm pretty nifty with a pair of scissors. Seriously, though, I've been to Italy, and the way you look now, you'd be arrested as a vagrant."  
"Go on, John," Anna wheedled.  
He gave in, his stomach sour.

John shaved and trimmed his beard, then James turned up at the door with a faded bathtowel, a comb and a pair of scissors.  
"I'm not taking much off," he announced, pulling out the wooden kitchen chair that was behind the door. John sat down and allowed the other man comb his hair, teasing out the knots with unnecessary violence. He said nothing as his hair was tugged roughly at the roots, knowing instinctively how much fun James was having at his silent discomfort.  
 _Snip, snip, snip_ went the scissors.  
"Anna says she thinks the Italians are behind the contracts," James said suddenly.  
John didn't reply.  
"I don't think so," James continued. _Snip, snip, snip._ "I know some of the Italians here: D'Antonio has family in New York and you hear stuff. I don't think it's them."  
"Why not?"  
"Because you freed up a seat that some members of the family have been eyeing for a long time. Santino's father had a little brother called Vittorio, who always felt a little overshadowed. Now that Santino, his father and sister are dead, things have just gotten interesting for them. I'd even go so far as to say that they owe you one. Of course, the next in line is only a teenager, but he's a teenager with a lot of wise old cousins who would only be too happy to pull strings in the background. You get me?"  
"Yes," John said.  
"I don't know who's behind it, but I'd be looking elsewhere."  
John said nothing, thinking.  
"Another thing," James added conversationally. "If anything happens to Anna on your watch, I will hold you personally responsible. Understand?"  
John was silent.  
"You might think we're harmless, toothless. The Irish don't have a seat on the High Table, after all. But I am a dangerous man, John Wick, and I know dangerous people. And above all, I'm a loyal man. If anything happens to Anna Quinn, I will hunt you down and one fucking night you will wake up with a knife at your throat."  
The scissors' blade pressed against John's jugular for a millisecond, the briefest of flicks.  
"There. Finished. What do you think?" James said lightly, as though nothing had happened.  
He tapped John on the shoulder and pointed at a small mirror on the wall above the washbasin. To his surprise, John looked ... neat. His hair was tidy, his beard closely trimmed. He looked human again, like the man who had, once upon a lifetime ago, lived in a clean white house with a loving wife.  
"Thank you," he said.  
" _Thank you_ ," James mimicked his solemn voice. "You're an odd fucker, Wick. How you two ended up working together is beyond me."

"What's beyond you?" Anna said from the doorway. "Nice, John. You look respectable again."  
"Nothing," James said, bundling her out the door. "Come on, Annie. I'll get some dye at the drug store on the corner, then we'll do you. I mean, I _did_ you already but – "  
"James!" she cried again and punched his arm.  
James left the room, laughing, his head thrown back. Without a backward glance, he pulled the door shut on John behind them. He listened to them good-naturedly argue all the way down the hall, then he sank down on the bed, pulled a credit card from his wallet and started ordering stuff online: a small suitcase, clothes, and another pair of shoes. He put in the address of Tierney's bar, taken from the match-book he'd picked up in the kitchen, and clicked the button for same-day delivery.  
By the time night fell, he would be ready to walk out of that fucking bar and never look back.

\- - -  
 _Thank you for your comments. I'm glad you're reading along!_


	25. Chapter 25

She went with him for his first suit fitting – oh, so many years ago. Back when they were still in training, thrown together as a team. She knew he was nervous about it in the days before the appointment: he was extra clumsy, knocking things over with his long arms, stumbling over his long legs. _Gangly_ , Ms Chen used to say with a fond smile, _that boy is gangly_.  
The martial arts teachers had trained him to be still, to move more smoothly, but he still had to grow into the body he had. Anna sometimes thought he acted like someone who'd woken up one day to discover his limbs had stretched overnight. He was skinny and awkward and, well, _gangly_. But Ms Chen and Mr Black insisted that the time had come for him to start dressing like the other professionals, maybe hoping that the right suit of clothes would hide the last rough edges of a boy's body. Black had arranged an appointment with one of the Agency's preferred tailors and had told him that no expense was to be spared.  
"The first suit is on me," he'd said to John with a wink. "It's a rite of passage."  
"What do I get?" Anna had asked, offended. "Don't I get a free suit?"  
"You can wear what you want," Maggie Chen had chided. "But it's different for the men."  
"It's sexism, that's what it is," she'd huffed.  
"Well," Mr Black said jovially, "Go along with John and help him pick out a suit. And if you really want one yourself, ask Mr Wilkes to make you up one. I'd like to see you in a suit."

Out-manoeuvred, she pretended to laugh and suddenly remembered she had to stuff to do somewhere else, skulking off in the knowledge that Ms Chen and Mr Black were laughing at her. But the next day after training, John was waiting for her outside the showers.  
"Are you coming?" he asked.  
"Where?" she said.  
"To the tailor."  
"Why the f– . I mean, why on _earth_ would I want to go to the tailor?"  
"I thought you wanted a suit."  
"I don't want a suit; I want fairness. I want equality," she said hotly. "I want – "  
"Fine," he interrupted quickly. "I just thought – . Never mind. I'll go on my own."  
And she saw something in his hesitation that made her realise that the prospect of going for his first suit fitting terrified him. He glanced at the ground, his almond eyes fixed on some spot by his shoes, half his face covered by his long, dark hair. Something inside her _twang_ ed, a chord of pity. She balled her fists in annoyance. Fucking John Wick. She fucking hated him for making her feel like this. Making her feel _sorry_ for him. Making her feel like she owed him something.  
"Oh, come on, then," she said, with ill-grace. "I guess somebody'd better go along and make sure you don't fu–, mess it up."  
He glanced up at her. "Yeah?" he said.  
"Sure," she replied.  
"I'd appreciate it," he said in his earnest way. "Because I want something nice. Like, really cool."  
"Cool," she said. "Yeah."  
He walked alongside her with his loping walk.  
"Thanks for this, Annie," he said, giving her one of his rare smiles.  
 _John Wick in a suit,_ she'd thought back then, shaking her head in wonder. _That'll be a sight!_

x x x

They flew to Munich, figuring the Italians would have people on watch at the airports in Rome and Florence. There, John hired a car and they drove south, through Bavaria and into Austria, intending to drive straight through to Perugia. But it was a warm day and they were held up in a traffic jam outside Innsbruck, so by the time they'd crossed the Brenner Pass into Italy, John was irritated and wanted to stop.  
"The next town is called ... what the - ? Gossensass-Colle Isarco," he said, stumbling over the words.  
"We're in the Tyrol," she said mildly. "A lot of places have Italian _and_ German names."  
He didn't reply but gave a tiny sigh. "I'm too tired to drive," he said, a little combatively. "I want a drink. And a bed."  
"Fine by me," Anna said. "We're in no rush, John."  
She was sitting in the passenger seat, her head lolling against the window. She periodically looked at her phone and stifled a laugh, as she scrolled through the ridiculous memes and outrageous messages James was bombarding her with. She didn't have to look over at John to know that he was pissed off: he drove like an automaton, his foot steady on the gas pedal of their hired Mercedes. Not even the lure of the German _autobahn_ could sweeten his mood.  
"Why don't you take off your tie?" Anna suggested. "Or, like, loosen it?"  
John shook his head curtly. His jacket was hanging in the back of the car: that was a huge concession. But his shirt sleeves were not rolled up and his Armani tie still hung around his neck. Anna's jacket had been flung on to the back seat and was still lying there in a heap, she'd already opened the top button of her jeans and kicked off her shoes.  
"God forbid John Wick should loosen his tie," she muttered. "A major breach of etiquette has already occurred with the removal of his jacket. No tie? That would only open the sluice gates to sartorial degeneration. He might start wearing shorts next. Or Crocs."  
She sniggered at the thought, glancing up to see if he'd heard. A muscle in his jaw twitched but he said nothing.  
"I can remember when you used to wear jeans like normal people," she said.  
"I still wear jeans," he said patiently. "You saw me in jeans last week. But we're working, Quinn."  
"We're working in 100° heat," she pointed out. "You can loosen your tie, Wick."  
He ignored her.  
Anna's phone lit up as another WhatsApp message arrive from James.

John opened his mouth to say something and closed it again.  
"What?" she said, tapping away. "What? You can say it."  
"Nothing."  
Silence.  
"Just glad you have rekindled your ... romance with that Irish guy," he said insouciantly.  
Anna snorted.  
"You hate him," she said. "He's everything you're not. You know, like, fun. _He_ doesn't wear suits. He probably doesn't even own one. Not that he wouldn't look good in a suit," she added in a thoughtful voice. John bristled and Anna glanced up at him again, trying not to smile.  
He tapped the car's GPS display and turned off for Colle Isarco.  
"Well, I'm glad it's working out for you," he said stiffly.  
The town was quite picturesque, with a backdrop of beautiful mountains against a clear blue sky. He stopped at a zebra crossing to allow three elderly women pass. They waved and he smiled at them in return.  
"What?" she said distractedly, texting James.  
He was sending her vaguely racist jokes about an Englishman, an Irishman and a Scotsman. Although was it racism when the butt of the joke was about your own culture? Hard to tell. The jokes were not very good, in any case, but he seemed to have dozens of them.  
"Your thing," John said, pointing at the phone.  
"We don't have a thing. No more than you had a thing with blondie-whatsherface with the long nails. Or was that a _fling_?"

John pulled into the parking lot of a _Pension_ that advertised vacancies on its sign outside. The guesthouse was in typical Alpine style and based on the throng of seniors armed with Nordic walking poles outside, they would easily be the youngest guests there.  
John turned to look at her, his left arm resting the steering wheel.  
"Yes," he said earnestly. "It was a fling. A one-night stand. Get over it. I don't know why you can't just let it go. You've got that Irish guy practically throwing himself at your feet, so move on. We've got more important things to focus on."  
"I have moved on," she said complacently.  
"So I figured."  
"With James? No, that's never going to happen."  
John raised an eyebrow. "Does he know that? Or are you just going lead him on as well?"  
Anna could stand it no longer and let out a peal of laughter. "For God's sake, John! I could never give him what he wants!"  
"A relationship?"  
"A penis," she said with exaggerated patience. "He's gay, John."  
They stared at each other for a moment, then the muscle in his jaw moved again and he got out of the car silently, removing his jacket from the hook over the back seat and their bags from the trunk. He walked across the asphalt of the parking lot with long strides and she hurried to keep up. He stopped at the door of the hotel, waiting for her to scurry up the steps, then held the glass door open for her.  
"Thank you," she said.  
In response he silently and demonstratively loosened his tie.

 _As always, thank you for taking the time to review. It's really great to hear from readers - sometimes this can feel like one is writing into a void, so hearing from you is always appreciated ;-)_


	26. Chapter 26

_Not safe for work! Read it somewhere where you can safely palpitate ;-)_

"Travel the world, they said. Exotic locations, they said, glamorous hotels. What the fuck did we do wrong?" Anna grumbled, throwing her bag on the bed. The hotel was clearly targeted at a senior demographic: there were guard rails in the shower and an assistance button between the two chaste single beds. Everything about the hotel screamed easy-care functionality, from the beige tiles to the brown coverlets. Even the pictures on the walls had been plucked off a conveyor belt: they showed stylised images of the Alps, far more attractive than the actual Alps visible behind the car park and the suburbs of the town beyond.  
John said nothing. He sat on the edge of the other bed and undid his shoes, kicking off the first and slowly pulling off the second. He bit back a groan. Anna spun around and looked at him. His head was bent, his hair covering his face as he examined his foot. It had been bandaged tightly, but over the top of the bandage, the skin was swollen and mottled.  
"Fuck, John," she said breathlessly as he unwrapped the bandage. His foot was a range of dull colours, the swelling misshaped by pressure of his shoe. "How long has it been like that? How did you manage to drive?"  
He looked up at her. "I managed," he said in his dry tone. "Just about."  
He stood up and put some weight on it, wincing.  
"Sit down," she said, pushing him back on the bed. "Jesus, John, that looks disgusting. Are you sure it's not broken?"  
"It's just a sprain," he said. "I think."  
They both looked at his foot.  
"You need some ice," Anna said decisively. "Lie down on the bed and, you know, elevate it. Raise it up."  
She gently pushed him back and he allowed himself to sit back against the headboard, while she arranged pillows and cushions under his foot.  
"Thank you, nurse," John said, deadpan, as she gently lifted his ankle to arrange a pillow. Her face pinkened a little, as though he'd caught her doing something illicit. "I don't know what's gotten into you. That one time I actually did break my ankle, you told me to suck it up and not be a pussy."  
She straightened up, her cheeks still pink.  
"You want me to tell you to suck it up and not be a pussy?" she asked and tweaked his foot, so a burst of pain shot up his leg.  
"No!" he yelped.  
She stood by his bed, her fingers still on his foot. She tilted her head to one side, looking at him as though she'd never seen him before. Then, inexplicably, she stroked his big toe with the pad of her thumb, a gentle caress, and left the room.  
"I'll get some ice," she called as the door fell shut.

She asked for ice. The receptionist first tried to direct her to the nearest ice cream parlour, then gave her a glass with a couple of ice cubes in it. Increasingly frustrated, Anna tried to explain what she needed, finally succeeding when she switched to German.  
"Ach so!" the receptionist said. " _Eis für den Fuss!_ "  
"For his foot," Anna said, relieved. She was beginning to get a headache and she sorely needed a strong drink.  
An older lady, standing behind her in a group of tourists, detached herself from her friends and asked Anna in German if she needed help. She was a doctor – retired – but it sounded like she needed some assistance.  
"My husband hurt his foot and it looks ... " she searched for the appropriate word. She couldn't remember disgusting so she said "...bad. _Es sieht schlecht aus._ "  
"And he won't see a doctor, I bet" the older lady said. " _Typisch_!"  
 _Typical_ Anna agreed. The receptionist returned with a basin of ice and the older lady went upstairs with Anna to their room. John was startled when Anna entered with the white-haired woman in tow, but she didn't seem to notice his discomfort. The doctor pulled up the leg of his trousers, told Anna to tell him to put on a pair of shorts, how could he wear woollen pants in this heat? She felt his ankle, watched him sharply draw the air in through his teeth as she gently felt his foot.

"I don't think it's broken," she said. "But it needs plenty of ice and he shouldn't walk on it."  
Anna wrung her hands. "He needs to be able to walk," she said.  
The other woman looked at him sharply. "You'll have to change your plans," she said in German. "You're stuck here for a couple of days, I'm afraid."  
Anna relayed the news to John and he immediately started to protest, pulling down his shirt sleeves as though he were preparing to jump up and leave straight away.  
"Stop, stop," the woman said in English. "Americans, always so stressy. Enjoy some days of holiday. Have good food and good wine. Have another little honeymoon," she said and winked, a surprisingly naughty wink.

Anna thanked her and led her to the door. When she came back, John was silently lowering his foot into the basin of ice, biting his lip.  
"You should have told me before we left the States," she said angrily. "I asked you if your foot was okay and you said it was fine. I didn't know it had mutated into ... this. Do you know how dangerous it is to fly like that? For fuck's sake, John. Deep-vein thrombosis, you fucking moron. You survive every kind of shit and whaddyaknow? It's something like this that'll finally kill you."  
He sighed. She was angry, growing angrier by the minute.  
"We have a couple of days to figure out what we're going to do. What we're going to say," he said placatingly. "We need that time."  
"Those couple of days would be better spent staking the place," she said angrily. "Better spent figuring out a way to get into the damn place. No, better spent figuring out a way to get out. Because as of now – what's our plan? Show up in front of the Europeans and ask whoever has a repeating contract on us to kindly cancel it. That's assuming that the D'Antonios don't take you aside and kill you, Wick. I thought you had a plan."  
"If I had a plan, I would've told you," he said mildly.  
"You always have a plan," she snapped. "You only deign to share it with me when you're finished working it out."  
"Well, I don't have one this time."  
She snorted.  
"Too busy sulking about James Tierney," she snapped. "You spend a weekend fucking Miss Perky Tits and then get yourself into a snit at the idea of me having a sex life with an attractive man who adores me. Or fakes it really well. You're fucking twisted, John Wick."  
He didn't want to meet her eyes, so he stared at his foot. The ice was cold to the point of being painful. He concentrated on keeping his foot in the basin, focussing on counting the seconds that he managed to endure it.

Suddenly, she smacked him across the back of the head.  
"Ow!" he yelped.  
"Well?" she demanded.  
"Well, what?"  
"What I just said!" she cried.  
"Okay. I'm fucking twisted," he said quietly. "I didn't like the idea of you sleeping with Tierney. So sue me."  
She balled her fists, then reached out to slap him again. This time, he grabbed her wrist.  
"Don't," he warned.  
"You slept with _her_ ," Anna said accusingly.  
"I told you, Anna, it was just sex."  
He really didn't want this conversation. She was standing at his side, the heightened colour in her normally pale face an indication of her upset. He released her arm and she rubbed her wrist, the ugly red marks of his fingers.  
"Why won't you sleep with _me_? What's wrong with _me_? Why am I so repulsive to you? You spent years ... _looking_ at me. Looking at me with those eyes of yours. And now I'm practically throwing myself at you, but you don't want me any more. You'd sooner fuck ... _Clara_."  
She spat the name out like a curse.  
"Quinn," he began but didn't know how to continue.  
To his horror, she started to cry.  
"Anna," he said, standing up and upsetting the basin. The ice skittered across the floor like broken glass.  
"Fuck off, John Wick," she said. "I hope the D'Antonio family fucking executes you. It would make my life so much simpler."  
She pushed him roughly and, balanced only on his good foot, he fell back awkwardly on his bed. Without a backward glance, she left the room, slamming the door. He limped after her, pulling it open.  
"Anna!" he called as she pulled open the door to the stairway. She flipped him her middle finger.  
"I'm going to get a drink," she said, wiping her eyes with the heel of her hand.

Anna found the bar and made some friends. She shared two bottles of wine with a couple of retired Austrian women who were passing through with a tour group, on their way to Florence. They taught her German tongue twisters and she tried to teach them how to say _How much would a woodchuck chuck, if a woodchuck could chuck wood_? It ended in uproarious disaster, causing people at the neighbouring tables to chuckle. The three women laughed so hard that tears poured down their faces and the waiter brought them complimentary glasses of Ramazotti when they paid the bill. One of the women, Gabi, cried, " _Auf x!_ " and they downed the liqueur in one go.  
" _Ihr seid wild_ ," Anna said, steadying herself on the edge of the table. _You're wild. "_ I don't know any American senior citizens like you two." _  
_The two women laughed.  
"You only lif once!" Gabi cried. "Why not have some fun?"  
"I never have fun," Anna said, remorsefully.  
"Go and have some fun," said Anita, the other woman. "Go, Anna!"  
"Yeah," she said sourly. Easy for them to say. She had to go back upstairs to John Wick and his hurt feelings. The only good thing about Wick was his morbid fear of talking. Talking about anything personal. Talking about emotions. If she was lucky, he'd be asleep, or feigning sleep wrapped in an all-encompassing self-righteous sulk. There'd be another couple of days of iciness, then he'd gradually thaw and they'd pretend nothing had ever happened. Again.  
 _Whatever_ , she thought angrily, pressing the button for the elevator. She made sure Anita and Gabi got out at the right floor, then trundled up to the next floor and got out. She let herself into the room, silently closing the door behind her. Her ears pricked, she listened for the sound of his breathing in the darkness.

He turned on the bedside lamp.  
"Hey," he said.  
She jumped, startled, and almost turned to leave the room, but he said, "Wait."  
John stood up, gingerly putting weight on his swollen foot. He was naked. He stood awkwardly, his hands hanging by his sides.  
"Aw, Jesus," Anna moaned, covering her face with her hands. "Please stop. Put that away. Ugh."  
"I've thought about what you said," he replied, his voice earnest. "I apologise. I'm sorry, Annie. Of course I want to sleep with you. You don't know how often I've thought about it. But it makes everything so ... complicated. But then how much more complicated can it get, right?"  
He laughed his deep laugh, an awkward chuckle in the silence of the room.  
"I'm going to vomit," she said.  
"Anna. I'm serious."  
"You can take your pity fuck and shove it," Anna snapped.  
She put her hand on the door knob but he jumped forward, his hand on her wrist, hissing in pain as he trod on his bad foot. Then he stood silently beside her; it had always made her uneasy, his uncanny silence. He stood next to her, looking down at the top of her head, his chest barely moving as he inhaled and exhaled. She smelled his shower gel, heard the ticking of his watch on the nightstand, looked at the scar she'd given him when they were training, and at the long white scar that ran down the length of his stomach.

He kissed her hair and she leaned her head against his chest, closing her eyes.  
It was a concession.  
"But what – " she began.  
"But what if we just don't talk," John said so quietly, she barely heard him. "What if you just say nothing. For a change."  
He smiled at her, the sudden broad smile that lit up his face. She nodded dumbly, wary. John limped to the nearest bed, tugging her hand. He pulled her t-shirt over her head and bent to kiss her neck and her shoulder blades, pushing back her hair. Anna pushed him down on the bed for the second time that day, this time gently. He watched her undress quickly, and then she crawled on to the bed between his legs. He opened his mouth to protest but she opened hers and took him. She knew what he liked; her eyes watched him as she dipped up and down. She liked to see his Adam's apple move as he swallowed, his body tense. His fingers were in her hair, caressing her head. Finally, he could take no more.  
"Anna - " he said, but she moved above him and ran her tongue up his scar. He shivered. Anna sat astride him, lowered herself down on to his hardness, her eyes closed as she savoured it. John grabbed her hips roughly and tried to move her to his rhythm but she strained against him and moved slowly, infinitesimally slowly. His eyes widened and he tried to move beneath her, but she smacked his hands away and continued.

He used a move they'd practised a thousand times in training to flip her over on her back. She yelped in surprise.  
"Dude, did you just _throw_ me?" she said, astonished, as he arranged his long limbs between hers. He slid a hand under her hips to lift her body so he could push inside. He momentarily shut his eyes, then opened them again as she writhed beneath him, pulling her legs up to let him thrust more deeply. She stroked his face, her fingertips brushing the lines at the side of his face, pushing back his hair.  
"All those hours of judo finally paid off," he said, moving inside her.  
"I can't believe you _threw_ me – "  
"Is this really what you want to discuss now?" John interrupted, grinning. "Martial arts?"

In answer, she pulled her arms over her head, arched her back so her nipples brushed his chest. He groaned and buried his head in her neck, moving more quickly. Anna knew his body, knew what he liked. She looked into his eyes, kissed his eager mouth and whispered " _John_ ," in his ear. His fingers dug into the sheets and he thrust hard; he came. He moved with her till she cried out, and then sank gently down beside her, a leg resting proprietarily across her thighs, his face in her hair. He released her long enough to use the bathroom and pulled her back into bed when she returned. He grinned at her silently, kissed her cheek, her mouth, before arranging his arm under his head to sleep, pulling her hips to rest against his stomach.

Anna watched him fall asleep, watched the gradual relaxing of his muscles, his guarded expression softening into a ghost of the face of the boy she had once known. She touched his beard, touched the grey hairs, pushed back a strand of hair off his face, and traced the faint acne scars on his cheeks, the wrinkles at his eyes. He breathed softly and his face twitched.  
 _He's already dreaming,_ she thought. He always claimed to have trouble sleeping, but when he lay next to her, he could drift away in seconds.  
She turned off the bedside lamp and turned her back on him, so they lay side by side in the narrow bed.  
"Quinn," he murmured.  
"I'm here," she replied.  
But there was no answer. He was fast asleep.


	27. Chapter 27

Léonard Latournelle had been greedy and ultimately his greed had been his downfall. Not just his; oh, no: the entire family came toppling down like a stack of cards. Valérie Latournelle had just turned nineteen when her father was arrested for embezzlement, corruption and a myriad other white-collar crimes. His banking career had become mired in some rather shady business and one day Valérie returned home from a shopping trip with some girlfriends to find the door of their Paris apartment flanked by grim-looking policemen. The girlfriends had bid her a hasty leave, kissing the air next to her cheeks while they gawped unashamedly at the uniformed officers. That was the last time Valérie ever saw them: within two weeks her mother had packed her two daughters off to Rome and Amsterdam, put in the care of relatives that did not carry the Latournelle name so her daughters – beautiful, accomplished, unmarried products of an expensive private Parisian education – would not be sullied by their father's inability to not get caught.

Valérie got a job at an uncle's gallery in Rome. Her mother's brother was a minor success in art circles, moving at the very edge of a more illustrious group. Occasionally, through good luck or better connections, he got his hands on a nice little piece of work, which he always managed to sell at the right price to the right kind of people. He supplied the _nouveaux riches_ , the families whose money came from over the counter – and, very often, under the counter or in paper bags – those who were wealthy, as long as no one looked too closely at their wealth. They were the ones who were eager to snatch up a little Cézanne or a Seurat, afraid to haggle lest the little treasures would be instead offered to established families that already had da Vincis and Rembrandts behind bullet-proof glass, hidden in vaults for no one to see. Valérie had met Vittorio D'Angelo when he'd come in with his father. He was brash and bold and asked her out, ignoring her uncle's discreet throat-clearing. She turned him down, twice, thrice, and then deigned to let him take her out on a date, by the end of which he proposed marriage in his usual ridiculously impetuous manner. He turned her head with his Roman charm, his nice car, his beautiful clothes. She was impressed by his family's extensive apartment, their villa in the Tuscan countryside. Sure, his sister Gianna was a stroppy bitch and his brother Santino a bullish, pig-headed idiot, but Vittorio was easily led and amiable to anything, as long as it didn't interfere with his hobbies – his fast cars and love of expensive food and drink. Valérie agreed to marry him the third time he asked, bore him a little son before she decided that the process of pregnancy and childbirth was disgusting enough to try only once. Vittorio had his son, but she wanted her figure. Their family was complete.

Where did the D'Angelo money come from? Initially, Valérie didn't know and she did not care, as long as her credit cards were paid. She followed her own mother's example and simply did not ask. She heard things, of course, about the High Table but she did not want to know what it was. Why would she? Better not to know. But then one evening, she opened the door to her father-in-law's office, to tell him that dinner was ready, and found him there with his two sons and daughter, standing around a tall man with a gun hanging limply from his hand. She'd gasped and they all looked up.  
"He's leaving," her father-in-law said curtly and the tall man walked towards her, sheepishly, his dark hair falling into his eyes. He looked down at the carpet as he approached, but she saw his shirt was splotched with red and his beard was matted with blood. As he passed her, he looked up and she'd recoiled when she saw his eyes: brown eyes that looked straight through her, his face still and impassive. As though he was passing her in the corridor of a hotel, or on a busy street. Not limping past on her father-in-law's Persian rug, dripping blood from his raw knuckles, his eyes fixing hers, taking notes.  
"Who was that?" she'd whispered to her husband when they went down to dinner. And Vittorio had clucked her chin affectionately and said, "That was the bogey-man, _bellissima_. Forget you ever saw him."

But she never forgot him. That eerie stillness. He was never seen in their house again, but seeing him changed something inside Valérie. She realised that unless she wanted to end up like her own mother, who'd played blithely ignorant till the day the bailiff came to run an inventory on their home, she needed to understand what her in-laws did. She began paying attention, pumping Vittorio for information. She insisted on seeing accounts; she demanded to look at the payroll and their list of debtors. She finally understood that information was power: she wanted to know the connection between her father-in-law and that tall, thin man. And when she found it out, she was momentarily stunned, and then shrugged it off. It was business, the family business, and if her young son, Marco, was to some day elbow his way into the fold, she would have to help him out by knowing the business inside out.

The bogey-man never turned up again. Even at Vittorio's funeral, when almost anyone who worked with or for the D'Angelos turned up to pay their respects and express condolences to his father, his brother, his sister, his son and, almost as an afterthought, his widowed French wife, the long man with the loping walk and the slanting eyes did not turn up to acknowledge the sudden death of one of the D'Angelo boys. Nor was he present at her father-in-law's funeral. In fact, he disappeared into the shadows surrounding their charmed lives, till she heard that he had assassinated Gianna on her brother's orders and then killed Santino himself. Valérie smiled when she thought of it. The bogey-man had cut a swathe through the family, leaving a path open for Marco to take a place at the High Table instead of being relegated to the outer fringe of the family business. Certainly, he was only twenty-one, but at twenty-one she had married into one of the most powerful families in Italy. Her boy wasn't stupid. He would learn and she would carefully guide him.

And that was why she was standing on the balcony of her suite in the Hotel Brufani, a glass of sparkling wine in her hand. The Perugian hotel had beautiful views over the countryside but she was certain that she was the only D'Angelo enjoying them. The rest of the family were sitting with Uncle Massimo, discussing strategy for the meeting with the other Europeans at the High Table. She was not interested in strategy: the seat was Marco's. It passed from Gianna to Santino to Vittorio's son. It was indisputable and she would not waste time or demean his claim by discussing bargaining tactics. If any of the others – the Germans, the Russians, the Serbians - tried to wrest it from her hands, she would bankrupt the family to get her son's rightful inheritance. The thought made her smile wryly; she went back inside to summon Marco to her room to discuss his demands at the High Table meeting.

Inside, on the threshold of her suite, she found a small woman, her dark hair pushed back by Gucci sunglasses. She was waiting patiently, she looked almost relaxed, nodding in satisfaction when Valérie came in. She'd probably been watching Valérie on the balcony for ... ten minutes? Twenty minutes? Impossible to know. She hadn't heard her enter and Domi, her bodyguard, would certainly have knocked. She narrowed her eyes. The woman was dressed chicly, like an Italian, and looked vaguely familiar to Valérie - but she did not know where they might have met.

"How did you get in?" she snapped in Italian.  
"I let myself in," the woman answered in English. Valérie's English was good: she recognised an American accent.  
"How did you get past Domi?" she asked, edging toward the table that held her handbag and the little handgun that Domi had taught her to fire.  
"I persuaded him," the woman said, her eyes shifty. She put a hand up, wagged a finger to stop Valérie moving towards the bag.  
"Who are you?" Valérie said, raising her voice. "What do you want?"  
The woman held up both hands placatingly. "Only to talk," she said. "I only want to talk." She signalled the sofa and said, "Can we sit?"  
Valérie didn't respond but the other woman slid down on one of the slippery sofas and placed her hands on her knees in a gesture of submission.  
"Who are you?" Valérie asked again.  
"I am Anna Quinn," she replied. "I am a... an associate of John Wick."  
Valérie's blood ran cold. "He is come for my son now?" she said, her voice sharp with panic.

The American woman studied her and Valérie realised that she had that same still stare as her ... associate.  
"There is a contract on my head, in John Wick's name," Ms Quinn said. "It cannot be closed till the hit has taken place. He didn't open it and he can't call it off. I need to know if the D'Angelo family is behind it."  
"No," Valérie said with alacrity.  
"You are sure?"  
"I would know," she said proudly, tapping her chest. "Because I would be the one to open it."  
Ms Quinn stood up.  
"That's all I need to know," she said. " _Grazie_."  
She smiled at Valérie and that jogged a memory. She'd seen her once, at a banquet in New York. The American woman worked for Winston, one of his dark-suited professionals, trained by that Agency that turned out those impassive, lethal killers.  
"I remember you," Valérie said suddenly. "I remember they talked about you: the little ghost. _La silenziosa_ , is that what they call you? The silent one? Mr Wick's little shadow. The chink in his armour, I heard. Mr Wick's folly."  
She smirked, hoping for a reaction. Vittorio said that Wick had formed an attachment to his partner, till she left him for another man.  
Anna Quinn shrugged, looking away. Valérie couldn't see her face to read her expression.  
"He killed Santino and Gianna. Tell me now: does he come for my son?"  
"No."  
"I have your word?"  
"You have my word."  
"And in the future? He will not come to kill my boy?"  
"He will not come to kill your boy. This is over; he wants to have nothing more to do with the High Table. We just want the contract called off."  
Valérie saw an opportunity and she seized it: "If I can count on your support so my Marco gets his rightful seat, then I can make sure this contract is called off." She snapped her fingers. "Like that. In an instant. Do we have a deal?"

Ms Quinn shook her head, almost regretfully.  
"No deal," she said. "We do not want to get involved."  
"You _are_ involved," Valérie said. "Mr Wick killed Gianna and Santino. You realise Marco's first order of business will be to avenge his _beloved_ aunt's murder and his _beloved_ uncle's assassination? It is the family honour. I am sure he will not _rest_ until their killings are avenged."  
She smiled slyly at the little woman, who was watching her carefully.  
" _Signora_ D'Angelo," Ms Quinn said in a quiet voice, "I don't think you fully understand. We've already made a deal, you and I. You've told me what I want to know and in exchange Mr Wick will not add your son's name to the list of D'Angelo family members that he has killed. We are out of this game. It's as simple as that." She cleared her throat and then intoned, "Please rest assured that Mr Wick and I wish young Marco the _very_ best of luck with his application."  
She finished her little speech with mocking seriousness, and grinned at Valérie, a cheeky grin, before pulling down her dark nodded at her in a gesture of farewell, raising a hand to indicate that Valérie should remain where she stood.

Ms Quinn slipped out of the room on noiseless feet. Valérie waited till she'd closed the door, then rushed to open it behind her. The corridor was empty. The silent one had sprinted down the soft carpeted hallway or ducked into another room. She was gone. Valérie closed the door and, as she did, noticed the cupboard door wasn't completely shut. When she tried to push it, it jammed. She yanked the door open and Domi's foot fell out. Valérie recoiled, the way she had the first time she saw the John Wick, the bogey man. Her bodyguard was slumped over, she could only see the hilt of a knife in the darkness of the cupboard. With a sigh she picked up her phone and called Massimo to see if he could send someone to help her get rid of the body.


	28. Chapter 28

"The problem is," the man said in Russian, "that women want equality. Till they find out what equality really means."  
He punched John again, a sharp jab to the solar plexus to wind him.  
"See? Would Miss Quinn be able to take this? No, she would not. Would most men be hesitant to give it to her? Yes, they would. This is not equality, old friend."  
He punched John again and stood back with satisfaction as the other man sank to his knees, his arms pulled tighter by the men on either side of him.  
"I'll tell her that," John wheezed. "It's about time she learned."  
"Good," the Russian said jovially. "Now, tell me again what you wish to know."  
"The contract – " John struggled to find the right verb in Russian. "Who made the contract on us?"  
"Who opened the contract on you?" the Russian corrected him, in an almost kindly tone. "I really cannot tell you that, Jardani. And I find it surprising that you would even ask. Why do you think we would open a contract on your head; and if we had, why do you think we would tell you?"  
"Just crossing the t's, dotting the i's," John said in English, closing his eyes against the pain.  
"Fool," the man said and bent his head so his eyes were level with John's. "Try elsewhere, Jovonovich, you little shit."  
He nodded curtly at the men who held him and then turned to pick up his jacket from the hotel room sofa.

They dumped him in the corridor, silently closing the door behind them.  
John glanced up and down, tried to stand up but the pain in his side shot through him. Too many punches, too many bullet holes. He had a moment of quiet despair: when he was younger he would've bounced up, beaten down the door and taken his tormentor down. Now – older and wiser, stiffer and sorer – he allowed himself a moment before he got to his knees and then to his feet before any of the other guests came out. He was getting mightily tired of this shit and his battered body was aching in every bone. He pulled himself straight and set off slowly down the corridor before one of the Russian goons pulled him back in for more. The hotel was a country resort, halfway between Perugia and Assisi, and he'd walked in with his customary assurance, straight up to the suite where the Russian contingent was staying. He had known in his heart of hearts that they had no contract on him, but he had to be sure. And he had to pay his dues for infringing on their territory. It was better to make himself known to them and take the beating that came with it, than to have them come after him when they discovered he had been snooping around.

He went down the elevator, allowing himself to lean against its mirrored wall. When it came to a stop, he straightened up as the doors slid open -  
\- and came face to face with Dieter Römermann.

"Chohn!" the German cried. "Chohn Vick!"  
"Dieter," John replied quietly. The German grabbed his hand and pumped it enthusiastically. He tried not to wince. Behind him was his bodyguard, a large man in dark clothes, and Römermann's older son. John recognised him: he stood a good head taller than his father and he looked at John with open distaste, recognising him instantly as well.  
"You know my son," Dieter said proudly. "This is Max, remember Max? Little boy when last you saw him. A big man now, helping his father with the business."  
Max Römermann was built like his mother and he had inherited the best of her handsome features. He stared down at John, his face set.  
"Nice to see you again," John murmured, but the young man remained silent, holding his eye, his gaze cold. Dieter didn't seem to notice, beaming at John like a long-lost friend. Despite his wealth, his power, the German loved to boast: he preened like a little rooster, straightening the sleeves of his bespoke suit, one that had had to be made to fit his rotund frame. John knew what he was dealing with and he knew how best to play Römermann: he nodded respectfully.  
"You have fine sons," he said to Dieter.  
"And the other boy is qualified, he's a doctor now," Dieter said, sticking his chest out.. "He's the brains of the family, clever boy, my Tim."  
John was caught by a momentary memory of the young man in his apartment in Nuremberg, a gun hidden behind a box of cornflakes in the kitchen. Dieter Römermann's son had been brought up in a world with plenty of easy money and a constant hum of violence, underneath a thin veneer of respectability. It was hard to imagine him tending to the sick, pulling 36-hour shifts.  
"Is he working at a hospital or in private practice?" John asked politely.  
Dieter suddenly looked shifty.  
"He decided to work in industry," he said. "Doctors' hours – very long, you know. Pay not so good. He's in the USA now," he added, puffing up a little again.  
Aha, John thought. That sounded more like a Römermann: less work, more money.

Dieter looked over his shoulder as the elevator pinged and a well-dressed couple walked out, their heads bent in conversation. Hhe grabbed John by the arm and pulled him aside.  
"Who are you here for?" Römermann said in a low voice. "Is it them fucking Russians?"  
"No," John said. "I'm not here for anyone. I just had ... a question."  
Römermann cocked his head. "A question? You wanna ask me this question, too?"  
John smiled. "I'm pretty sure I know the answer."  
"Ask anyway."  
"Who opened the contract on me and Anna Quinn? It keeps repeating itself, like something on a loop. In the meantime, the Agency has been alerted but it re-enters the system almost weekly, an automatic order. It's like a virus they can't get rid of."  
"Tell them to block it," Römermann said with a quick click of his fingers. "Easy."  
"They have blocked it," John said. "But I need to know who's behind it because eventually it'll slip through and someone will take a shot at it. There's money behind it, waiting to be collected."  
Römermann patted his arm. "I can find out," he said. "I can pull some threads, is that what you say?"  
"Pull some strings," John replied.  
"Pull some strings. Now I have to meet with these fucking Russians and make sure these slippery bastards are on my side before we meet the Italians."  
"Good luck," John said wryly. "Sergei should be in a good mood."  
He felt a twinge of pain from his midriff.

Dieter grinned at him knowingly, eyeing John's stiff bearing, his careful movements.  
"You warmed him up for me, right? Well, herzlichen Dank, John. Let me buy you dinner tonight as a thank you."  
John demurred with a smile. The last time he'd had dinner with Dieter, it had set off a chain reaction of dreadful events. Max Römermann glanced away, his face grim, and John knew instinctively that the young man was thinking about his mother, accidentally shot in place of Anna Quinn.  
"I insist," Dieter said. "We have much to discuss before this meeting tomorrow, John."  
"I won't be at the meeting," he replied. "Like I said, I'm not here in any kind of official capacity. This is a private inquiry."  
"All the better," the German beamed. "Just two old friends, catching up."  
John shook his head. "Thank you," he said, "But no."  
"Is Miss Quinn with you in Italy?" Max Römermann asked suddenly and John hesitated, not sure how to answer. He glanced at Dieter, who froze, tugging his jacket down over his tubby stomach.  
"Yes, she is," he answered quietly.  
Dieter stared at him for a second, John could see his inner debate.  
"Give her – how do you say it? – give her my greetings," he said finally.  
"Your regards," John corrected quietly. "I will."

The elevator pinged again and this time Dieter moved to enter it, followed by the bodyguard and his son. There was no more mention made of dinner.  
"My best regards to Miss Quinn," he repeated again. "Good luck with your inquiry."  
And he turned to check out his reflection in the mirrored elevator walls. As the doors closed, John inadvertently locked eyes with Max, who stared at him evenly the elevator moved.

John felt a cold finger on his spine; felt someone walk over his grave.


End file.
